The Project Gutenberg EBook of Under the Redwoods, by Bret Harte
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Title: Under the Redwoods
Author: Bret Harte
Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2555]
Last Updated: September 26, 2016
Language: English
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UNDER THE REDWOODS

JIMMY’S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA

As night crept up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer’s Ledge
was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but presently reappeared
in little nebulous star-like points along the mountain side, as the
straggling cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by the miners
returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying brilliancy
that evening, two notably so—one that eventually resolved itself
into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity; the
other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one. They might
have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the settlement that
night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a lucky miner; and
the sick-bed of Dick Lasham, an unlucky one.

The latter was, however, not quite alone. He was ministered to by Daddy
Folsom, a weak but emotional and aggressively hopeful neighbor, who was
sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there was
something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were continually straying
to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities could be seen
between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the songs and laughter
that came faintly from the distance than on the feverish breathing and
unintelligible moans of the sufferer.

Nevertheless he looked troubled equally by the condition of his charge and
by his own enforced absence from the revels. A more impatient moan from
the sick man, however, brought a change to his abstracted face, and he
turned to him with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.

“In course! Lordy! I know jest what those pains are: kinder ez ef you was
havin’ a tooth pulled that had roots branchin’ all over ye! My! I’ve jest
had ‘em so bad I couldn’t keep from yellin’! That’s hot rheumatics! Yes,
sir, I oughter know! And” (confidentially) “the sing’ler thing about ‘em
is that they get worse jest as they’re going off—sorter wringin’ yer
hand and punchin’ ye in the back to say ‘Good-by.’ There!” he continued,
as the man sank exhaustedly back on his rude pillow of flour-sacks.
“There! didn’t I tell ye? Ye’ll be all right in a minit, and ez chipper ez
a jay bird in the mornin’. Oh, don’t tell me about rheumatics—I’ve
bin thar! On’y mine was the cold kind—that hangs on longest—yours
is the hot, that burns itself up in no time!”

If the flushed face and bright eyes of Lasham were not enough to
corroborate this symptom of high fever, the quick, wandering laugh he gave
would have indicated the point of delirium. But the too optimistic Daddy
Folsom referred this act to improvement, and went on cheerfully: “Yes,
sir, you’re better now, and”—here he assumed an air of cautious
deliberation, extravagant, as all his assumptions were—“I ain’t
sayin’ that—ef—you—was—to—rise—up”
(very slowly) “and heave a blanket or two over your shoulders—jest
by way o’ caution, you know—and leanin’ on me, kinder meander over
to Bob Falloner’s cabin and the boys, it wouldn’t do you a heap o’ good.
Changes o’ this kind is often prescribed by the faculty.” Another moan
from the sufferer, however, here apparently corrected Daddy’s too
favorable prognosis. “Oh, all right! Well, perhaps ye know best; and I’ll
jest run over to Bob’s and say how as ye ain’t comin’, and will be back in
a jiffy!”

“The letter,” said the sick man hurriedly, “the letter, the letter!”

Daddy leaned suddenly over the bed. It was impossible for even his
hopefulness to avoid the fact that Lasham was delirious. It was a strong
factor in the case—one that would certainly justify his going over
to Falloner’s with the news. For the present moment, however, this
aberration was to be accepted cheerfully and humored after Daddy’s own
fashion. “Of course—the letter, the letter,” he said convincingly;
“that’s what the boys hev bin singin’ jest now—

‘Good-by, Charley; when you are away,
Write me a letter, love; send me a letter, love!’

“That’s what you heard, and a mighty purty song it is too, and kinder
clings to you. It’s wonderful how these things gets in your head.”

“The letter—write—send money—money—money, and the
photograph—the photograph—photograph—money,” continued
the sick man, in the rapid reiteration of delirium.

“In course you will—to-morrow—when the mail goes,” returned
Daddy soothingly; “plenty of them. Jest now you try to get a snooze, will
ye? Hol’ on!—take some o’ this.”

There was an anodyne mixture on the rude shelf, which the doctor had left
on his morning visit. Daddy had a comfortable belief that what would
relieve pain would also check delirium, and he accordingly measured out a
dose with a liberal margin to allow of waste by the patient in swallowing
in his semi-conscious state. As he lay more quiet, muttering still, but
now unintelligibly, Daddy, waiting for a more complete unconsciousness and
the opportunity to slip away to Falloner’s, cast his eyes around the
cabin. He noticed now for the first time since his entrance that a
crumpled envelope bearing a Western post-mark was lying at the foot of the
bed. Daddy knew that the tri-weekly post had arrived an hour before he
came, and that Lasham had evidently received a letter. Sure enough the
letter itself was lying against the wall beside him. It was open. Daddy
felt justified in reading it.

It was curt and businesslike, stating that unless Lasham at once sent a
remittance for the support of his brother and sister—two children in
charge of the writer—they must find a home elsewhere. That the
arrears were long standing, and the repeated promises of Lasham to send
money had been unfulfilled. That the writer could stand it no longer. This
would be his last communication unless the money were sent forthwith.

It was by no means a novel or, under the circumstances, a shocking
disclosure to Daddy. He had seen similar missives from daughters, and even
wives, consequent on the varying fortunes of his neighbors; no one knew
better than he the uncertainties of a miner’s prospects, and yet the
inevitable hopefulness that buoyed him up. He tossed it aside impatiently,
when his eye caught a strip of paper he had overlooked lying upon the
blanket near the envelope. It contained a few lines in an unformed boyish
hand addressed to “my brother,” and evidently slipped into the letter
after it was written. By the uncertain candlelight Daddy read as follows:—

Dear Brother, Rite to me and Cissy rite off. Why aint you done it? It’s so
long since you rote any. Mister Recketts ses you dont care any more. Wen
you rite send your fotograff. Folks here ses I aint got no big bruther any
way, as I disremember his looks, and cant say wots like him. Cissy’s
kryin’ all along of it. I’ve got a hedake. William Walker make it ake by a
blo. So no more at present from your loving little bruther Jim.

The quick, hysteric laugh with which Daddy read this was quite consistent
with his responsive, emotional nature; so, too, were the ready tears that
sprang to his eyes. He put the candle down unsteadily, with a casual
glance at the sick man. It was notable, however, that this look contained
less sympathy for the ailing “big brother” than his emotion might have
suggested. For Daddy was carried quite away by his own mental picture of
the helpless children, and eager only to relate his impressions of the
incident. He cast another glance at the invalid, thrust the papers into
his pocket, and clapping on his hat slipped from the cabin and ran to the
house of festivity. Yet it was characteristic of the man, and so engrossed
was he by his one idea, that to the usual inquiries regarding his patient
he answered, “he’s all right,” and plunged at once into the incident of
the dunning letter, reserving—with the instinct of an emotional
artist—the child’s missive until the last. As he expected, the money
demand was received with indignant criticisms of the writer.

“That’s just like ‘em in the States,” said Captain Fletcher; “darned if
they don’t believe we’ve only got to bore a hole in the ground and snake
out a hundred dollars. Why, there’s my wife—with a heap of hoss
sense in everything else—is allus wonderin’ why I can’t rake in a
cool fifty betwixt one steamer day and another.”

“That’s nothin’ to my old dad,” interrupted Gus Houston, the “infant” of
the camp, a bright-eyed young fellow of twenty; “why, he wrote to me
yesterday that if I’d only pick up a single piece of gold every day and
just put it aside, sayin’ ‘That’s for popper and mommer,’ and not fool it
away—it would be all they’d ask of me.”

“That’s so,” added another; “these ignorant relations is just the ruin o’
the mining industry. Bob Falloner hez bin lucky in his strike to-day, but
he’s a darned sight luckier in being without kith or kin that he knows
of.”

Daddy waited until the momentary irritation had subsided, and then drew
the other letter from his pocket. “That ain’t all, boys,” he began in a
faltering voice, but gradually working himself up to a pitch of pathos;
“just as I was thinking all them very things, I kinder noticed this yer
poor little bit o’ paper lyin’ thar lonesome like and forgotten, and I—read
it—and well—gentlemen—it just choked me right up!” He
stopped, and his voice faltered.

“Go slow, Daddy, go slow!” said an auditor smilingly. It was evident that
Daddy’s sympathetic weakness was well known.

Daddy read the child’s letter. But, unfortunately, what with his real
emotion and the intoxication of an audience, he read it extravagantly, and
interpolated a child’s lisp (on no authority whatever), and a simulated
infantile delivery, which, I fear, at first provoked the smiles rather
than the tears of his audience. Nevertheless, at its conclusion the little
note was handed round the party, and then there was a moment of thoughtful
silence.

“Tell you what it is, boys,” said Fletcher, looking around the table, “we
ought to be doin’ suthin’ for them kids right off! Did you,” turning to
Daddy, “say anythin’ about this to Dick?”

“Nary—why, he’s clean off his head with fever—don’t understand
a word—and just babbles,” returned Daddy, forgetful of his roseate
diagnosis a moment ago, “and hasn’t got a cent.”

“We must make up what we can amongst us afore the mail goes to-night,”
said the “infant,” feeling hurriedly in his pockets. “Come, ante up,
gentlemen,” he added, laying the contents of his buckskin purse upon the
table.

“Hold on, boys,” said a quiet voice. It was their host Falloner, who had
just risen and was slipping on his oilskin coat. “You’ve got enough to do,
I reckon, to look after your own folks. I’ve none! Let this be my affair.
I’ve got to go to the Express Office anyhow to see about my passage home,
and I’ll just get a draft for a hundred dollars for that old skeesicks—what’s
his blamed name? Oh, Ricketts”—he made a memorandum from the letter—“and
I’ll send it by express. Meantime, you fellows sit down there and write
something—you know what—saying that Dick’s hurt his hand and
can’t write—you know; but asked you to send a draft, which you’re
doing. Sabe? That’s all! I’ll skip over to the express now and get the
draft off, and you can mail the letter an hour later. So put your dust
back in your pockets and help yourselves to the whiskey while I’m gone.”
He clapped his hat on his head and disappeared.

“There goes a white man, you bet!” said Fletcher admiringly, as the door
closed behind their host. “Now, boys,” he added, drawing a chair to the
table, “let’s get this yer letter off, and then go back to our game.”

Pens and ink were produced, and an animated discussion ensued as to the
matter to be conveyed. Daddy’s plea for an extended explanatory and
sympathetic communication was overruled, and the letter was written to
Ricketts on the simple lines suggested by Falloner.

“But what about poor little Jim’s letter? That ought to be answered,” said
Daddy pathetically.

“If Dick hurt his hand so he can’t write to Ricketts, how in thunder is he
goin’ to write to Jim?” was the reply.

“But suthin’ oughter be said to the poor kid,” urged Daddy piteously.

“Well, write it yourself—you and Gus Houston make up somethin’
together. I’m going to win some money,” retorted Fletcher, returning to
the card-table, where he was presently followed by all but Daddy and
Houston.

“Ye can’t write it in Dick’s name, because that little brother knows
Dick’s handwriting, even if he don’t remember his face. See?” suggested
Houston.

Daddy seized the pen and “waded in.” Into somewhat deep and difficult
water, I fancy, for some of it splashed into his eyes, and he sniffled
once or twice as he wrote. “Suthin’ like this,” he said, after a pause:—

DEAR LITTLE JIMMIE,—Your big brother havin’ hurt his hand, wants me
to tell you that otherways he is all hunky and A1. He says he don’t forget
you and little Cissy, you bet! and he’s sendin’ money to old Ricketts
straight off. He says don’t you and Cissy mind whether school keeps or not
as long as big Brother Dick holds the lines. He says he’d have written
before, but he’s bin follerin’ up a lead mighty close, and expects to
strike it rich in a few days.

“You ain’t got no sabe about kids,” said Daddy imperturbably; “they’ve got
to be humored like sick folks. And they want everythin’ big—they
don’t take no stock in things ez they are—even ef they hev ‘em worse
than they are. ‘So,’” continued Daddy, reading to prevent further
interruption, “‘he says you’re just to keep your eyes skinned lookin’ out
for him comin’ home any time—day or night. All you’ve got to do is
to sit up and wait. He might come and even snake you out of your beds! He
might come with four white horses and a nigger driver, or he might come
disguised as an ornary tramp. Only you’ve got to be keen on watchin’.’ (Ye
see,” interrupted Daddy explanatorily, “that’ll jest keep them kids
lively.) ‘He says Cissy’s to stop cryin’ right off, and if Willie Walker
hits yer on the right cheek you just slug out with your left fist,
‘cordin’ to Scripter.’ Gosh,” ejaculated Daddy, stopping suddenly and
gazing anxiously at Houston, “there’s that blamed photograph—I clean
forgot that.”

“And Dick hasn’t got one in the shop, and never had,” returned Houston
emphatically. “Golly! that stumps us! Unless,” he added, with diabolical
thoughtfulness, “we take Bob’s? The kids don’t remember Dick’s face, and
Bob’s about the same age. And it’s a regular star picture—you bet!
Bob had it taken in Sacramento—in all his war paint. See!” He
indicated a photograph pinned against the wall—a really striking
likeness which did full justice to Bob’s long silken mustache and large,
brown determined eyes. “I’ll snake it off while they ain’t lookin’, and
you jam it in the letter. Bob won’t miss it, and we can fix it up with
Dick after he’s well, and send another.”

Daddy silently grasped the “infant’s” hand, who presently secured the
photograph without attracting attention from the card-players. It was
promptly inclosed in the letter, addressed to Master James Lasham. The
“infant” started with it to the post-office, and Daddy Folsom returned to
Lasham’s cabin to relieve the watcher that had been detached from
Falloner’s to take his place beside the sick man.

Meanwhile the rain fell steadily and the shadows crept higher and higher
up the mountain. Towards midnight the star points faded out one by one
over Sawyer’s Ledge even as they had come, with the difference that the
illumination of Falloner’s cabin was extinguished first, while the dim
light of Lasham’s increased in number. Later, two stars seemed to shoot
from the centre of the ledge, trailing along the descent, until they were
lost in the obscurity of the slope—the lights of the stage-coach to
Sacramento carrying the mail and Robert Falloner. They met and passed two
fainter lights toiling up the road—the buggy lights of the doctor,
hastily summoned from Carterville to the bedside of the dying Dick Lasham.

The slowing up of his train caused Bob Falloner to start from a half doze
in a Western Pullman car. As he glanced from his window he could see that
the blinding snowstorm which had followed him for the past six hours had
at last hopelessly blocked the line. There was no prospect beyond the
interminable snowy level, the whirling flakes, and the monotonous
palisades of leafless trees seen through it to the distant banks of the
Missouri. It was a prospect that the mountain-bred Falloner was beginning
to loathe, and although it was scarcely six weeks since he left
California, he was already looking back regretfully to the deep slopes and
the free song of the serried ranks of pines.

The intense cold had chilled his temperate blood, even as the rigors and
conventions of Eastern life had checked his sincerity and spontaneous flow
of animal spirits begotten in the frank intercourse and brotherhood of
camps. He had just fled from the artificialities of the great Atlantic
cities to seek out some Western farming lands in which he might put his
capital and energies. The unlooked-for interruption of his progress by a
long-forgotten climate only deepened his discontent. And now—that
train was actually backing! It appeared they must return to the last
station to wait for a snow-plough to clear the line. It was, explained the
conductor, barely a mile from Shepherdstown, where there was a good hotel
and a chance of breaking the journey for the night.

Shepherdstown! The name touched some dim chord in Bob Falloner’s memory
and conscience—yet one that was vague. Then he suddenly remembered
that before leaving New York he had received a letter from Houston
informing him of Lasham’s death, reminding him of his previous bounty, and
begging him—if he went West—to break the news to the Lasham
family. There was also some allusion to a joke about his (Bob’s)
photograph, which he had dismissed as unimportant, and even now could not
remember clearly. For a few moments his conscience pricked him that he
should have forgotten it all, but now he could make amends by this
providential delay. It was not a task to his liking; in any other
circumstances he would have written, but he would not shirk it now.

Shepherdstown was on the main line of the Kansas Pacific Road, and as he
alighted at its station, the big through trains from San Francisco swept
out of the stormy distance and stopped also. He remembered, as he mingled
with the passengers, hearing a childish voice ask if this was the
Californian train. He remembered hearing the amused and patient reply of
the station-master: “Yes, sonny—here she is again, and here’s her
passengers,” as he got into the omnibus and drove to the hotel. Here he
resolved to perform his disagreeable duty as quickly as possible, and on
his way to his room stopped for a moment at the office to ask for
Ricketts’ address. The clerk, after a quick glance of curiosity at his new
guest, gave it to him readily, with a somewhat familiar smile. It struck
Falloner also as being odd that he had not been asked to write his name on
the hotel register, but this was a saving of time he was not disposed to
question, as he had already determined to make his visit to Ricketts at
once, before dinner. It was still early evening.

He was washing his hands in his bedroom when there came a light tap at his
sitting-room door. Falloner quickly resumed his coat and entered the
sitting-room as the porter ushered in a young lady holding a small boy by
the hand. But, to Falloner’s utter consternation, no sooner had the door
closed on the servant than the boy, with a half-apologetic glance at the
young lady, uttered a childish cry, broke from her, and calling, “Dick!
Dick!” ran forward and leaped into Falloner’s arms.

The mere shock of the onset and his own amazement left Bob without breath
for words. The boy, with arms convulsively clasping his body, was
imprinting kisses on Bob’s waistcoat in default of reaching his face. At
last Falloner managed gently but firmly to free himself, and turned a
half-appealing, half-embarrassed look upon the young lady, whose own face,
however, suddenly flushed pink. To add to the confusion, the boy, in some
reaction of instinct, suddenly ran back to her, frantically clutched at
her skirts, and tried to bury his head in their folds.

“He don’t love me,” he sobbed. “He don’t care for me any more.”

The face of the young girl changed. It was a pretty face in its flushing;
in the paleness and thoughtfulness that overcast it it was a striking
face, and Bob’s attention was for a moment distracted from the
grotesqueness of the situation. Leaning over the boy she said in a
caressing yet authoritative voice, “Run away for a moment, dear, until I
call you,” opening the door for him in a maternal way so inconsistent with
the youthfulness of her figure that it struck him even in his confusion.
There was something also in her dress and carriage that equally affected
him: her garments were somewhat old-fashioned in style, yet of good
material, with an odd incongruity to the climate and season.

Under her rough outer cloak she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of
summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly
trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air of
breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. It was possible that
her cool self-possession might have been due to some instinctive
antagonism, for as she came a step forward with coldly and clearly-opened
gray eyes, he was vaguely conscious that she didn’t like him.
Nevertheless, her manner was formally polite, even, as he fancied, to the
point of irony, as she began, in a voice that occasionally dropped into
the lazy Southern intonation, and a speech that easily slipped at times
into Southern dialect:—

“I sent the child out of the room, as I could see that his advances were
annoying to you, and a good deal, I reckon, because I knew your reception
of them was still more painful to him. It is quite natural, I dare say,
you should feel as you do, and I reckon consistent with your attitude
towards him. But you must make some allowance for the depth of his
feelings, and how he has looked forward to this meeting. When I tell you
that ever since he received your last letter, he and his sister—until
her illness kept her home—have gone every day when the Pacific train
was due to the station to meet you; that they have taken literally as
Gospel truth every word of your letter”—

“My letter?” interrupted Falloner.

The young girl’s scarlet lip curled slightly. “I beg your pardon—I
should have said the letter you dictated. Of course it wasn’t in your
handwriting—you had hurt your hand, you know,” she added ironically.
“At all events, they believed it all—that you were coming at any
moment; they lived in that belief, and the poor things went to the station
with your photograph in their hands so that they might be the first to
recognize and greet you.”

“With my photograph?” interrupted Falloner again.

The young girl’s clear eyes darkened ominously. “I reckon,” she said
deliberately, as she slowly drew from her pocket the photograph Daddy
Folsom had sent, “that that is your photograph. It certainly seems an
excellent likeness,” she added, regarding him with a slight suggestion of
contemptuous triumph.

In an instant the revelation of the whole mystery flashed upon him! The
forgotten passage in Houston’s letter about the stolen photograph stood
clearly before him; the coincidence of his appearance in Shepherdstown,
and the natural mistake of the children and their fair protector, were
made perfectly plain. But with this relief and the certainty that he could
confound her with an explanation came a certain mischievous desire to
prolong the situation and increase his triumph. She certainly had not
shown him any favor.

“Have you got the letter also?” he asked quietly.

She whisked it impatiently from her pocket and handed it to him. As he
read Daddy’s characteristic extravagance and recognized the familiar
idiosyncrasies of his old companions, he was unable to restrain a smile.
He raised his eyes, to meet with surprise the fair stranger’s leveled
eyebrows and brightly indignant eyes, in which, however, the rain was fast
gathering with the lightning.

“It may be amusing to you, and I reckon likely it was all a California
joke,” she said with slightly trembling lips; “I don’t know No’thern
gentlemen and their ways, and you seem to have forgotten our ways as you
have your kindred. Perhaps all this may seem so funny to them: it may not
seem funny to that boy who is now crying his heart out in the hall; it may
not be very amusing to that poor Cissy in her sick-bed longing to see her
brother. It may be so far from amusing to her, that I should hesitate to
bring you there in her excited condition and subject her to the pain that
you have caused him. But I have promised her; she is already expecting us,
and the disappointment may be dangerous, and I can only implore you—for
a few moments at least—to show a little more affection than you
feel.” As he made an impulsive, deprecating gesture, yet without changing
his look of restrained amusement, she stopped him hopelessly. “Oh, of
course, yes, yes, I know it is years since you have seen them; they have
no right to expect more; only—only—feeling as you do,” she
burst impulsively, “why—oh, why did you come?”

Here was Bob’s chance. He turned to her politely; began gravely, “I simply
came to”—when suddenly his face changed; he stopped as if struck by
a blow. His cheek flushed, and then paled! Good God! What had he come for?
To tell them that this brother they were longing for—living for—perhaps
even dying for—was dead! In his crass stupidity, his wounded vanity
over the scorn of the young girl, his anticipation of triumph, he had
forgotten—totally forgotten—what that triumph meant! Perhaps
if he had felt more keenly the death of Lasham the thought of it would
have been uppermost in his mind; but Lasham was not his partner or
associate, only a brother miner, and his single act of generosity was in
the ordinary routine of camp life. If she could think him cold and
heartless before, what would she think of him now? The absurdity of her
mistake had vanished in the grim tragedy he had seemed to have cruelly
prepared for her. The thought struck him so keenly that he stammered,
faltered, and sank helplessly into a chair.

The shock that he had received was so plain to her that her own
indignation went out in the breath of it. Her lip quivered. “Don’t you
mind,” she said hurriedly, dropping into her Southern speech; “I didn’t go
to hurt you, but I was just that mad with the thought of those
pickaninnies, and the easy way you took it, that I clean forgot I’d no
call to catechise you! And you don’t know me from the Queen of Sheba.
Well,” she went on, still more rapidly, and in odd distinction to her
previous formal slow Southern delivery, “I’m the daughter of Colonel
Boutelle, of Bayou Sara, Louisiana; and his paw, and his paw before him,
had a plantation there since the time of Adam, but he lost it and six
hundred niggers during the Wah! We were pooh as pohverty—paw and maw
and we four girls—and no more idea of work than a baby. But I had an
education at the convent at New Orleans, and could play, and speak French,
and I got a place as school-teacher here; I reckon the first Southern
woman that has taught school in the No’th! Ricketts, who used to be our
steward at Bayou Sara, told me about the pickaninnies, and how helpless
they were, with only a brother who occasionally sent them money from
California. I suppose I cottoned to the pooh little things at first
because I knew what it was to be alone amongst strangers, Mr. Lasham; I
used to teach them at odd times, and look after them, and go with them to
the train to look for you. Perhaps Ricketts made me think you didn’t care
for them; perhaps I was wrong in thinking it was true, from the way you
met Jimmy just now. But I’ve spoken my mind and you know why.” She ceased
and walked to the window.

Falloner rose. The storm that had swept through him was over. The quick
determination, resolute purpose, and infinite patience which had made him
what he was were all there, and with it a conscientiousness which his
selfish independence had hitherto kept dormant. He accepted the situation,
not passively—it was not in his nature—but threw himself into
it with all his energy.

“You were quite right,” he said, halting a moment beside her; “I don’t
blame you, and let me hope that later you may think me less to blame than
you do now. Now, what’s to be done? Clearly, I’ve first to make it right
with Tommy—I mean Jimmy—and then we must make a straight dash
over to the girl! Whoop!” Before she could understand from his face the
strange change in his voice, he had dashed out of the room. In a moment he
reappeared with the boy struggling in his arms. “Think of the little scamp
not knowing his own brother!” he laughed, giving the boy a really
affectionate, if slightly exaggerated hug, “and expecting me to open my
arms to the first little boy who jumps into them! I’ve a great mind not to
give him the present I fetched all the way from California. Wait a
moment.” He dashed into the bedroom, opened his valise—where he
providentially remembered he had kept, with a miner’s superstition, the
first little nugget of gold he had ever found—seized the tiny bit of
quartz of gold, and dashed out again to display it before Jimmy’s eager
eyes.

If the heartiness, sympathy, and charming kindness of the man’s whole
manner and face convinced, even while it slightly startled, the young
girl, it was still more effective with the boy. Children are quick to
detect the false ring of affected emotion, and Bob’s was so genuine—whatever
its cause—that it might have easily passed for a fraternal
expression with harder critics. The child trustfully nestled against him
and would have grasped the gold, but the young man whisked it into his
pocket. “Not until we’ve shown it to our little sister—where we’re
going now! I’m off to order a sleigh.” He dashed out again to the office
as if he found some relief in action, or, as it seemed to Miss Boutelle,
to avoid embarrassing conversation. When he came back again he was
carrying an immense bearskin from his luggage. He cast a critical look at
the girl’s unseasonable attire.

Miss Boutelle flushed a little. “I’m warm enough when walking,” she said
coldly. Bob glanced at her smart little French shoes, and thought
otherwise. He said nothing, but hastily bundled his two guests downstairs
and into the street. The whirlwind dance of the snow made the sleigh an
indistinct bulk in the glittering darkness, and as the young girl for an
instant stood dazedly still, Bob incontinently lifted her from her feet,
deposited her in the vehicle, dropped Jimmy in her lap, and wrapped them
both tightly in the bearskin. Her weight, which was scarcely more than a
child’s, struck him in that moment as being tantalizingly incongruous to
the matronly severity of her manner and its strange effect upon him. He
then jumped in himself, taking the direction from his companion, and drove
off through the storm.

The wind and darkness were not favorable to conversation, and only once
did he break the silence. “Is there any one who would be likely to
remember—me—where we are going?” he asked, in a lull of the
storm.

Miss Boutelle uncovered enough of her face to glance at him curiously.
“Hardly! You know the children came here from the No’th after your
mother’s death, while you were in California.”

“Of course,” returned Bob hurriedly; “I was only thinking—you know
that some of my old friends might have called,” and then collapsed into
silence.

After a pause a voice came icily, although under the furs: “Perhaps you’d
prefer that your arrival be kept secret from the public? But they seem to
have already recognized you at the hotel from your inquiry about Ricketts,
and the photograph Jimmy had already shown them two weeks ago.” Bob
remembered the clerk’s familiar manner and the omission to ask him to
register. “But it need go no further, if you like,” she added, with a
slight return of her previous scorn.

“I’ve no reason for keeping it secret,” said Bob stoutly.

No other words were exchanged until the sleigh drew up before a plain
wooden house in the suburbs of the town. Bob could see at a glance that it
represented the income of some careful artisan or small shopkeeper, and
that it promised little for an invalid’s luxurious comfort. They were
ushered into a chilly sitting-room and Miss Boutelle ran upstairs with
Jimmy to prepare the invalid for Bob’s appearance. He noticed that a word
dropped by the woman who opened the door made the young girl’s face grave
again, and paled the color that the storm had buffeted to her cheek. He
noticed also that these plain surroundings seemed only to enhance her own
superiority, and that the woman treated her with a deference in odd
contrast to the ill-concealed disfavor with which she regarded him.
Strangely enough, this latter fact was a relief to his conscience. It
would have been terrible to have received their kindness under false
pretenses; to take their just blame of the man he personated seemed to
mitigate the deceit.

The young girl rejoined him presently with troubled eyes. Cissy was worse,
and only intermittently conscious, but had asked to see him. It was a
short flight of stairs to the bedroom, but before he reached it Bob’s
heart beat faster than it had in any mountain climb. In one corner of the
plainly furnished room stood a small truckle bed, and in it lay the
invalid. It needed but a single glance at her flushed face in its aureole
of yellow hair to recognize the likeness to Jimmy, although, added to that
strange refinement produced by suffering, there was a spiritual exaltation
in the child’s look—possibly from delirium—that awed and
frightened him; an awful feeling that he could not lie to this hopeless
creature took possession of him, and his step faltered. But she lifted her
small arms pathetically towards him as if she divined his trouble, and he
sank on his knees beside her. With a tiny finger curled around his long
mustache, she lay there silent. Her face was full of trustfulness,
happiness, and consciousness—but she spoke no word.

There was a pause, and Falloner, slightly lifting his head without
disturbing that faintly clasping finger, beckoned Miss Boutelle to his
side. “Can you drive?” he said, in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“Take my sleigh and get the best doctor in town to come here at once.
Bring him with you if you can; if he can’t come at once, drive home
yourself. I will stay here.”

“But”—hesitated Miss Boutelle.

“I will stay here,” he repeated.

The door closed on the young girl, and Falloner, still bending over the
child, presently heard the sleigh-bells pass away in the storm. He still
sat with his bent head, held by the tiny clasp of those thin fingers. But
the child’s eyes were fixed so intently upon him that Mrs. Ricketts leaned
over the strangely-assorted pair and said—

“It’s your brother Dick, dearie. Don’t you know him?”

The child’s lips moved faintly. “Dick’s dead,” she whispered.

“She’s wandering,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Speak to her.” But Bob, with his
eyes on the child’s, lifted a protesting hand. The little sufferer’s lips
moved again. “It isn’t Dick—it’s the angel God sent to tell me.”

She spoke no more. And when Miss Boutelle returned with the doctor she was
beyond the reach of finite voices. Falloner would have remained all night
with them, but he could see that his presence in the contracted household
was not desired. Even his offer to take Jimmy with him to the hotel was
declined, and at midnight he returned alone.

What his thoughts were that night may be easily imagined. Cissy’s death
had removed the only cause he had for concealing his real identity. There
was nothing more to prevent his revealing all to Miss Boutelle and to
offer to adopt the boy. But he reflected this could not be done until
after the funeral, for it was only due to Cissy’s memory that he should
still keep up the role of Dick Lasham as chief mourner. If it seems
strange that Bob did not at this crucial moment take Miss Boutelle into
his confidence, I fear it was because he dreaded the personal effect of
the deceit he had practiced upon her more than any ethical consideration;
she had softened considerably in her attitude towards him that night; he
was human, after all, and while he felt his conduct had been unselfish in
the main, he dared not confess to himself how much her opinion had
influenced him. He resolved that after the funeral he would continue his
journey, and write to her, en route, a full explanation of his conduct,
inclosing Daddy’s letter as corroborative evidence. But on searching his
letter-case he found that he had lost even that evidence, and he must
trust solely at present to her faith in his improbable story.

It seemed as if his greatest sacrifice was demanded at the funeral! For it
could not be disguised that the neighbors were strongly prejudiced against
him. Even the preacher improved the occasion to warn the congregation
against the dangers of putting off duty until too late. And when Robert
Falloner, pale, but self-restrained, left the church with Miss Boutelle,
equally pale and reserved, on his arm, he could with difficulty restrain
his fury at the passing of a significant smile across the faces of a few
curious bystanders. “It was Amy Boutelle, that was the ‘penitence’ that
fetched him, you bet!” he overheard, a barely concealed whisper; and the
reply, “And it’s a good thing she’s made out of it too, for he’s mighty
rich!”

At the church door he took her cold hand into his. “I am leaving to-morrow
morning with Jimmy,” he said, with a white face. “Good-by.”

“You are quite right; good-by,” she replied as briefly, but with the
faintest color. He wondered if she had heard it too.

Whether she had heard it or not, she went home with Mrs. Ricketts in some
righteous indignation, which found—after the young lady’s habit—free
expression. Whatever were Mr. Lasham’s faults of omission it was most
un-Christian to allude to them there, and an insult to the poor little
dear’s memory who had forgiven them. Were she in his shoes she would shake
the dust of the town off her feet; and she hoped he would. She was a
little softened on arriving to find Jimmy in tears. He had lost Dick’s
photograph—or Dick had forgotten to give it back at the hotel, for
this was all he had in his pocket. And he produced a letter—the
missing letter of Daddy, which by mistake Falloner had handed back instead
of the photograph. Miss Boutelle saw the superscription and Californian
postmark with a vague curiosity.

“Did you look inside, dear? Perhaps it slipped in.”

Jimmy had not. Miss Boutelle did—and I grieve to say, ended by
reading the whole letter.

Bob Falloner had finished packing his things the next morning, and was
waiting for Mr. Ricketts and Jimmy. But when a tap came at the door, he
opened it to find Miss Boutelle standing there. “I have sent Jimmy into
the bedroom,” she said with a faint smile, “to look for the photograph
which you gave him in mistake for this. I think for the present he prefers
his brother’s picture to this letter, which I have not explained to him or
any one.” She stopped, and raising her eyes to his, said gently: “I think
it would have only been a part of your goodness to have trusted me, Mr.
Falloner.”

“Then you will forgive me?” he said eagerly.

She looked at him frankly, yet with a faint trace of coquetry that the
angels might have pardoned. “Do you want me to say to you what Mrs.
Ricketts says were the last words of poor Cissy?”

A year later, when the darkness and rain were creeping up Sawyer’s Ledge,
and Houston and Daddy Folsom were sitting before their brushwood fire in
the old Lasham cabin, the latter delivered himself oracularly.

“It’s a mighty queer thing, that news about Bob! It’s not that he’s
married, for that might happen to any one; but this yer account in the
paper of his wedding being attended by his ‘little brother.’ That gets me!
To think all the while he was here he was lettin’ on to us that he hadn’t
kith or kin! Well, sir, that accounts to me for one thing,—the
sing’ler way he tumbled to that letter of poor Dick Lasham’s little
brother and sent him that draft! Don’t ye see? It was a feller feelin’!
Knew how it was himself! I reckon ye all thought I was kinder soft reading
that letter o’ Dick Lasham’s little brother to him, but ye see what it
did.”

THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER

I do not think that any of us who enjoyed the acquaintance of the Piper
girls or the hospitality of Judge Piper, their father, ever cared for the
youngest sister. Not on account of her extreme youth, for the eldest Miss
Piper confessed to twenty-six—and the youth of the youngest sister
was established solely, I think, by one big braid down her back. Neither
was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls was
a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was not
entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of
intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity was
astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I think it
could be said that a slight deafness, which might impart an embarrassing
publicity to any statement—the reverse of our general feeling—that
might be confided by any one to her private ear, was a sufficient reason;
for it was pointed out that she always understood everything that Tom
Sparrell told her in his ordinary tone of voice. Briefly, it was very
possible that Delaware—the youngest Miss Piper—did not like
us. Yet it was fondly believed by us that the other sisters failed to show
that indifference to our existence shown by Miss Delaware, although the
heartburnings, misunderstandings, jealousies, hopes and fears, and finally
the chivalrous resignation with which we at last accepted the long
foregone conclusion that they were not for us, and far beyond our reach,
is not a part of this veracious chronicle. Enough that none of the
flirtations of her elder sisters affected or were shared by the youngest
Miss Piper. She moved in this heart-breaking atmosphere with sublime
indifference, treating her sisters’ affairs with what we considered rank
simplicity or appalling frankness. Their few admirers who were weak enough
to attempt to gain her mediation or confidence had reason to regret it.

“It’s no kind o’ use givin’ me goodies,” she said to a helpless suitor of
Louisiana Piper’s who had offered to bring her some sweets, “for I ain’t
got no influence with Lu, and if I don’t give ‘em up to her when she hears
of it, she’ll nag me and hate you like pizen. Unless,” she added
thoughtfully, “it was wintergreen lozenges; Lu can’t stand them, or
anybody who eats them within a mile.” It is needless to add that the
miserable man, thus put upon his gallantry, was obliged in honor to
provide Del with the wintergreen lozenges that kept him in disfavor and at
a distance. Unfortunately, too, any predilection or pity for any
particular suitor of her sister’s was attended by even more disastrous
consequences. It was reported that while acting as “gooseberry”—a
role usually assigned to her—between Virginia Piper and an
exceptionally timid young surveyor, during a ramble she conceived a rare
sentiment of humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice
lingering behind in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or
“running on ahead” to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect
on the shy and speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder
sister rambled indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss
Piper leaped upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a
thimbleberry in her mouth swung her small feet to and fro and surveyed him
dispassionately.

“Ye don’t seem to be ketchin’ on?” she said tentatively.

The young man smiled feebly and interrogatively.

“Don’t seem to be either follering suit nor trumpin’,” continued Del
bluntly.

“I suppose so—that is, I fear that Miss Virginia”—he
stammered.

“Speak up! I’m a little deaf. Say it again!” said Del, screwing up her
eyes and eyebrows.

The young man was obliged to admit in stentorian tones that his progress
had been scarcely satisfactory.

“You’re goin’ on too slow—that’s it,” said Del critically. “Why,
when Captain Savage meandered along here with Jinny” (Virginia) “last
week, afore we got as far as this he’d reeled off a heap of Byron and
Jamieson” (Tennyson), “and sich; and only yesterday Jinny and Doctor
Beveridge was blowin’ thistletops to know which was a flirt all along the
trail past the crossroads. Why, ye ain’t picked ez much as a single berry
for Jinny, let alone Lad’s Love or Johnny Jumpups and Kissme’s, and ye
keep talkin’ across me, you two, till I’m tired. Now look here,” she burst
out with sudden decision, “Jinny’s gone on ahead in a kind o’ huff; but I
reckon she’s done that afore too, and you’ll find her, jest as Spinner
did, on the rise of the hill, sittin’ on a pine stump and lookin’ like
this.” (Here the youngest Miss Piper locked her fingers over her left
knee, and drew it slightly up,—with a sublime indifference to the
exposure of considerable small-ankled red stocking,—and with a
far-off, plaintive stare, achieved a colorable imitation of her elder
sister’s probable attitude.) “Then you jest go up softly, like as you was
a bear, and clap your hands on her eyes, and say in a disguised voice like
this” (here Del turned on a high falsetto beyond any masculine compass),
“‘Who’s who?’ jest like in forfeits.”

“But she’ll be sure to know me,” said the surveyor timidly.

“She won’t,” said Del in scornful skepticism.

“I hardly think”—stammered the young man, with an awkward smile,
“that I—in fact—she’ll discover me—before I can get
beside her.”

“Not if you go softly, for she’ll be sittin’ back to the road, so—gazing
away, so”—the youngest Miss Piper again stared dreamily in the
distance, “and you’ll creep up just behind, like this.”

“But won’t she be angry? I haven’t known her long—that is—don’t
you see?” He stopped embarrassedly.

But here the instruction suddenly ended, once and for all time! For
whether the young man was seriously anxious to perfect himself; whether he
was truly grateful to the young girl and tried to show it; whether he was
emboldened by the childish appeal of the long brown distinguishing braid
down her back, or whether he suddenly found something peculiarly
provocative in the reddish brown eyes between their thickset hedge of
lashes, and with the trim figure and piquant pose, and was seized with
that hysteric desperation which sometimes attacks timidity itself, I
cannot say! Enough that he suddenly put his arm around her waist and his
lips to her soft satin cheek, peppered and salted as it was by
sun-freckles and mountain air, and received a sound box on the ear for his
pains. The incident was closed. He did not repeat the experiment on either
sister. The disclosure of his rebuff seemed, however, to give a singular
satisfaction to Red Gulch.

While it may be gathered from this that the youngest Miss Piper was
impervious to general masculine advances, it was not until later that Red
Gulch was thrown into skeptical astonishment by the rumors that all this
time she really had a lover! Allusion has been made to the charge that her
deafness did not prevent her from perfectly understanding the ordinary
tone of voice of a certain Mr. Thomas Sparrell.

No undue significance was attached to this fact through the very
insignificance and “impossibility” of that individual;—a lanky,
red-haired youth, incapacitated for manual labor through lameness,—a
clerk in a general store at the Cross Roads! He had never been the
recipient of Judge Piper’s hospitality; he had never visited the house
even with parcels; apparently his only interviews with her or any of the
family had been over the counter. To do him justice he certainly had never
seemed to seek any nearer acquaintance; he was not at the church door when
her sisters, beautiful in their Sunday gowns, filed into the aisle, with
little Delaware bringing up the rear; he was not at the Democratic
barbecue, that we attended without reference to our personal politics, and
solely for the sake of Judge Piper and the girls; nor did he go to the
Agricultural Fair Ball—open to all. His abstention we believed to be
owing to his lameness; to a wholesome consciousness of his own social
defects; or an inordinate passion for reading cheap scientific textbooks,
which did not, however, add fluency nor conviction to his speech. Neither
had he the abstraction of a student, for his accounts were kept with an
accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the store, as ignobly practical,
and even malignant. Possibly we might have expressed this opinion more
strongly but for a certain rude vigor of repartee which he possessed, and
a suggestion that he might have a temper on occasion. “Them red-haired
chaps is like to be tetchy and to kinder see blood through their
eyelashes,” had been suggested by an observing customer.

In short, little as we knew of the youngest Miss Piper, he was the last
man we should have suspected her to select as an admirer. What we did know
of their public relations, purely commercial ones, implied the reverse of
any cordial understanding. The provisioning of the Piper household was
entrusted to Del, with other practical odds and ends of housekeeping, not
ornamental, and the following is said to be a truthful record of one of
their overheard interviews at the store:—

The youngest Miss Piper, entering, displacing a quantity of goods in the
centre to make a sideways seat for herself, and looking around loftily as
she took a memorandum-book and pencil from her pocket.

“Ahem! If I ain’t taking you away from your studies, Mr. Sparrell, maybe
you’ll be good enough to look here a minit;—but” (in affected
politeness) “if I’m disturbing you I can come another time.”

Sparrell, placing the book he had been reading carefully under the
counter, and advancing to Miss Delaware with a complete ignoring of her
irony: “What can we do for you to-day, Miss Piper?”

Miss Delaware, with great suavity of manner, examining her
memorandum-book: “I suppose it wouldn’t be shocking your delicate feelings
too much to inform you that the canned lobster and oysters you sent us
yesterday wasn’t fit for hogs?”

Sparrell (blandly): “They weren’t intended for them, Miss Piper. If we had
known you were having company over from Red Gulch to dinner, we might have
provided something more suitable for them. We have a fair quality of
oil-cake and corn-cobs in stock, at reduced figures. But the canned
provisions were for your own family.”

Miss Delaware (secretly pleased at this sarcastic allusion to her sister’s
friends, but concealing her delight): “I admire to hear you talk that way,
Mr. Sparrell; it’s better than minstrels or a circus. I suppose you get it
outer that book,” indicating the concealed volume. “What do you call it?”

Sparrell (politely): “The First Principles of Geology.”

Miss Delaware, leaning sideways and curling her little fingers around her
pink ear: “Did you say the first principles of ‘geology’ or ‘politeness’?
You know I am so deaf; but, of course, it couldn’t be that.”

Sparrell (easily): “Oh no, you seem to have that in your hand”—pointing
to Miss Delaware’s memorandum-book—“you were quoting from it when
you came in.”

Miss Delaware, after an affected silence of deep resignation: “Well! it’s
too bad folks can’t just spend their lives listenin’ to such elegant talk;
I’d admire to do nothing else! But there’s my family up at Cottonwood—and
they must eat. They’re that low that they expect me to waste my time
getting food for ‘em here, instead of drinking in the First Principles of
the Grocery.”

“Geology,” accepted Miss Delaware apologetically; “the history of rocks,
which is so necessary for knowing just how much sand you can put in the
sugar. So I reckon I’ll leave my list here, and you can have the things
toted to Cottonwood when you’ve got through with your First Principles.”

She tore out a list of her commissions from a page of her memorandum-book,
leaped lightly from the counter, threw her brown braid from her left
shoulder to its proper place down her back, shook out her skirts
deliberately, and saying, “Thank you for a most improvin’ afternoon, Mr.
Sparrell,” sailed demurely out of the store.

A few auditors of this narrative thought it inconsistent that a daughter
of Judge Piper and a sister of the angelic host should put up with a mere
clerk’s familiarity, but it was pointed out that “she gave him as good as
he sent,” and the story was generally credited. But certainly no one ever
dreamed that it pointed to any more precious confidences between them.

I think the secret burst upon the family, with other things, at the big
picnic at Reservoir Canyon. This festivity had been arranged for weeks
previously, and was undertaken chiefly by the “Red Gulch Contingent,” as
we were called, as a slight return to the Piper family for their frequent
hospitality. The Piper sisters were expected to bring nothing but their
own personal graces and attend to the ministration of such viands and
delicacies as the boys had profusely supplied.

The site selected was Reservoir Canyon, a beautiful, triangular valley
with very steep sides, one of which was crowned by the immense reservoir
of the Pioneer Ditch Company. The sheer flanks of the canyon descended in
furrowed lines of vines and clinging bushes, like folds of falling skirts,
until they broke again into flounces of spangled shrubbery over a broad
level carpet of monkshood, mariposas, lupines, poppies, and daisies.
Tempered and secluded from the sun’s rays by its lofty shadows, the
delicious obscurity of the canyon was in sharp contrast to the fiery
mountain trail that in the full glare of the noonday sky made its tortuous
way down the hillside, like a stream of lava, to plunge suddenly into the
valley and extinguish itself in its coolness as in a lake. The heavy odors
of wild honeysuckle, syringa, and ceanothus that hung over it were
lightened and freshened by the sharp spicing of pine and bay. The mountain
breeze which sometimes shook the serrated tops of the large redwoods above
with a chill from the remote snow peaks even in the heart of summer, never
reached the little valley.

It seemed an ideal place for a picnic. Everybody was therefore astonished
to hear that an objection was suddenly raised to this perfect site. They
were still more astonished to know that the objector was the youngest Miss
Piper! Pressed to give her reasons, she had replied that the locality was
dangerous; that the reservoir placed upon the mountain, notoriously old
and worn out, had been rendered more unsafe by false economy in unskillful
and hasty repairs to satisfy speculating stockbrokers, and that it had
lately shown signs of leakage and sapping of its outer walls; that, in the
event of an outbreak, the little triangular valley, from which there was
no outlet, would be instantly flooded. Asked still more pressingly to give
her authority for these details, she at first hesitated, and then gave the
name of Tom Sparrell.

The derision with which this statement was received by us all, as the
opinion of a sedentary clerk, was quite natural and obvious, but not the
anger which it excited in the breast of Judge Piper; for it was not
generally known that the judge was the holder of a considerable number of
shares in the Pioneer Ditch Company, and that large dividends had been
lately kept up by a false economy of expenditure, to expedite a “sharp
deal” in the stock, by which the judge and others could sell out of a
failing company. Rather, it was believed, that the judge’s anger was due
only to the discovery of Sparrell’s influence over his daughter and his
interference with the social affairs of Cottonwood. It was said that there
was a sharp scene between the youngest Miss Piper and the combined forces
of the judge and the elder sisters, which ended in the former’s resolute
refusal to attend the picnic at all if that site was selected.

As Delaware was known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness,
and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was
merely “stickin’ up for Sparrell’s judgment” without any reference to her
own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away;
the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and envious
expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the reservoir
had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that only a
miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular afternoon
of the picnic; that even if it did happen, there was no direct proof that
it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than a spice of
excitement to the affair. The “Red Gulch Contingent,” who WOULD be there,
was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in case of any
accident, as any lame crank who wouldn’t, but could only croak a warning
to them from a distance. A few even wished something might happen that
they might have an opportunity of showing their superior devotion; indeed,
the prospect of carrying the half-submerged sisters, in a condition of
helpless loveliness, in their arms to a place of safety was a fascinating
possibility. The warning was conspicuously ineffective; everybody looked
eagerly forward to the day and the unchanged locality; to the greatest
hopefulness and anticipation was added the stirring of defiance, and when
at last the appointed hour had arrived, the picnic party passed down the
twisting mountain trail through the heat and glare in a fever of
enthusiasm.

It was a pretty sight to view this sparkling procession—the girls
cool and radiant in their white, blue, and yellow muslins and flying
ribbons, the “Contingent” in its cleanest ducks, and blue and red flannel
shirts, the judge white-waistcoated and panama-hatted, with a new dignity
borrowed from the previous circumstances, and three or four impressive
Chinamen bringing up the rear with hampers—as it at last debouched
into Reservoir Canyon.

Here they dispersed themselves over the limited area, scarcely half an
acre, with the freedom of escaped school children. They were secure in
their woodland privacy. They were overlooked by no high road and its
passing teams; they were safe from accidental intrusion from the
settlement; indeed they went so far as to effect the exclusiveness of
“clique.” At first they amused themselves by casting humorously defiant
eyes at the long low Ditch Reservoir, which peeped over the green wall of
the ridge, six hundred feet above them; at times they even simulated an
exaggerated terror of it, and one recognized humorist declaimed a
grotesque appeal to its forbearance, with delightful local allusions.
Others pretended to discover near a woodman’s hut, among the belt of pines
at the top of the descending trail, the peeping figure of the ridiculous
and envious Sparrell. But all this was presently forgotten in the actual
festivity. Small as was the range of the valley, it still allowed retreats
during the dances for waiting couples among the convenient laurel and
manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side. After the dancing,
old-fashioned children’s games were revived with great laughter and
half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies; notably one pastime known
as “I’m a-pinin’,” in which ingenious performance the victim was obliged
to stand in the centre of a circle and publicly “pine” for a member of the
opposite sex. Some hilarity was occasioned by the mischievous Miss
“Georgy” Piper declaring, when it came to her turn, that she was “pinin’”
for a look at the face of Tom Sparrell just now!

In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the
long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was
neatly proposed by the editor of the “Argus.” The judge responded with
great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his
humble endeavor to promote harmony—that harmony so characteristic of
American principles—in social as he had in political circles, and
particularly among the strangely constituted yet purely American elements
of frontier life. He accepted the present festivity with its overflowing
hospitalities, not in recognition of himself—(“yes! yes!”)—nor
of his family—(enthusiastic protests)—but of that American
principle! If at one time it seemed probable that these festivities might
be marred by the machinations of envy—(groans)—or that harmony
interrupted by the importation of low-toned material interests—(groans)—he
could say that, looking around him, he had never before felt—er—that—Here
the judge stopped short, reeled slightly forward, caught at a camp-stool,
recovered himself with an apologetic smile, and turned inquiringly to his
neighbor.

A light laugh—instantly suppressed—at what was at first
supposed to be the effect of the “overflowing hospitality” upon the
speaker himself, went around the male circle until it suddenly appeared
that half a dozen others had started to their feet at the same time, with
white faces, and that one of the ladies had screamed.

“What is it?” everybody was asking with interrogatory smiles.

It was Judge Piper who replied:—

“A little shock of earthquake,” he said blandly; “a mere thrill! I think,”
he added with a faint smile, “we may say that Nature herself has applauded
our efforts in good old Californian fashion, and signified her assent.
What are you saying, Fludder?”

“I was thinking, sir,” said Fludder deferentially, in a lower voice, “that
if anything was wrong in the reservoir, this shock, you know, might”—

He was interrupted by a faint crashing and crackling sound, and looking
up, beheld a good-sized boulder, evidently detached from some greater
height, strike the upland plateau at the left of the trail and bound into
the fringe of forest beside it. A slight cloud of dust marked its course,
and then lazily floated away in mid air. But it had been watched
agitatedly, and it was evident that that singular loss of nervous balance
which is apt to affect all those who go through the slightest earthquake
experience was felt by all. But some sense of humor, however, remained.

“Looks as if the water risks we took ain’t goin’ to cover earthquakes,”
drawled Dick Frisney; “still that wasn’t a bad shot, if we only knew what
they were aiming at.”

“Do be quiet,” said Virginia Piper, her cheeks pink with excitement.
“Listen, can’t you? What’s that funny murmuring you hear now and then up
there?”

“It’s only the snow-wind playin’ with the pines on the summit. You girls
won’t allow anybody any fun but yourselves.”

But here a scream from “Georgy,” who, assisted by Captain Fairfax, had
mounted a camp-stool at the mouth of the valley, attracted everybody’s
attention. She was standing upright, with dilated eyes, staring at the top
of the trail. “Look!” she said excitedly, “if the trail isn’t moving!”

Everybody faced in that direction. At the first glance it seemed indeed as
if the trail was actually moving; wriggling and undulating its tortuous
way down the mountain like a huge snake, only swollen to twice its usual
size. But the second glance showed it to be no longer a trail but a
channel of water, whose stream, lifted in a bore-like wall four or five
feet high, was plunging down into the devoted valley.

For an instant they were unable to comprehend even the nature of the
catastrophe. The reservoir was directly over their heads; the bursting of
its wall they had imagined would naturally bring down the water in a dozen
trickling streams or falls over the cliff above them and along the flanks
of the mountain. But that its suddenly liberated volume should overflow
the upland beyond and then descend in a pent-up flood by their own trail
and their only avenue of escape, had been beyond their wildest fancy.

They met this smiting truth with that characteristic short laugh with
which the American usually receives the blow of Fate or the unexpected—as
if he recognized only the absurdity of the situation. Then they ran to the
women, collected them together, and dragged them to vantages of fancied
security among the bushes which flounced the long skirts of the mountain
walls. But I leave this part of the description to the characteristic
language of one of the party:—

“When the flood struck us, it did not seem to take any stock of us in
particular, but laid itself out to ‘go for’ that picnic for all it was
worth! It wiped it off the face of the earth in about twenty-five seconds!
It first made a clean break from stem to stern, carrying everything along
with it. The first thing I saw was old Judge Piper, puttin’ on his best
licks to get away from a big can of strawberry ice cream that was
trundling after him and trying to empty itself on his collar, whenever a
bigger wave lifted it. He was followed by what was left of the brass band;
the big drum just humpin’ itself to keep abreast o’ the ice cream, mixed
up with camp-stools, music-stands, a few Chinamen, and then what they call
in them big San Francisco processions ‘citizens generally.’ The hull thing
swept up the canyon inside o’ thirty seconds. Then, what Captain Fairfax
called ‘the reflex action in the laws o’ motion’ happened, and darned if
the hull blamed procession didn’t sweep back again—this time all the
heavy artillery, such as camp-kettles, lager beer kegs, bottles, glasses,
and crockery that was left behind takin’ the lead now, and Judge Piper and
that ice cream can bringin’ up the rear. As the jedge passed us the second
time, we noticed that that ice cream can—hevin’ swallowed water—was
kinder losing its wind, and we encouraged the old man by shoutin’ out,
‘Five to one on him!’ And then, you wouldn’t believe what followed. Why,
darn my skin, when that ‘reflex’ met the current at the other end, it just
swirled around again in what Captain Fairfax called the ‘centrifugal
curve,’ and just went round and round the canyon like ez when yer washin’
the dirt out o’ a prospectin’ pan—every now and then washin’ some
one of the boys that was in it, like scum, up ag’in the banks.

“We managed in this way to snake out the judge, jest ez he was sailin’
round on the home stretch, passin’ the quarter post two lengths ahead o’
the can. A good deal o’ the ice cream had washed away, but it took us ten
minutes to shake the cracked ice and powdered salt out o’ the old man’s
clothes, and warm him up again in the laurel bush where he was clinging.
This sort o’ ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’ kep’ on until most o’
the humans was got out, and only the furniture o’ the picnic was left in
the race. Then it got kinder mixed up, and went sloshin’ round here and
there, ez the water kep’ comin’ down by the trail. Then Lulu Piper, what I
was holdin’ up all the time in a laurel bush, gets an idea, for all she
was wet and draggled; and ez the things went bobbin’ round, she calls out
the figures o’ a cotillon to ‘em. ‘Two camp-stools forward.’ ‘Sashay and
back to your places.’ ‘Change partners.’ ‘Hands all round.’

“She was clear grit, you bet! And the joke caught on and the other girls
jined in, and it kinder cheered ‘em, for they was wantin’ it. Then Fludder
allowed to pacify ‘em by sayin’ he just figured up the size o’ the
reservoir and the size o’ the canyon, and he kalkilated that the cube was
about ekal, and the canyon couldn’t flood any more. And then Lulu—who
was peart as a jay and couldn’t be fooled—speaks up and says,
‘What’s the matter with the ditch, Dick?’

“Lord! then we knew that she knew the worst; for of course all the water
in the ditch itself—fifty miles of it!—was drainin’ now into
that reservoir and was bound to come down to the canyon.”

It was at this point that the situation became really desperate, for they
had now crawled up the steep sides as far as the bushes afforded foothold,
and the water was still rising. The chatter of the girls ceased, there
were long silences, in which the men discussed the wildest plans, and
proposed to tear their shirts into strips to make ropes to support the
girls by sticks driven into the mountain side. It was in one of those
intervals that the distinct strokes of a woodman’s axe were heard high on
the upland at the point where the trail descended to the canyon. Every ear
was alert, but only those on one side of the canyon could get a fair view
of the spot. This was the good fortune of Captain Fairfax and Georgy
Piper, who had climbed to the highest bush on that side, and were now
standing up, gazing excitedly in that direction.

“Some one is cutting down a tree at the head of the trail,” shouted
Fairfax. The response and joyful explanation, “for a dam across the
trail,” was on everybody’s lips at the same time.

But the strokes of the axe were slow and painfully intermittent.
Impatience burst out.

“Yell to him to hurry up! Why haven’t they brought two men?”

“It’s only one man,” shouted the captain, “and he seems to be a cripple.
By Jiminy!—it is—yes!—it’s Tom Sparrell!”

There was a dead silence. Then, I grieve to say, shame and its twin
brother rage took possession of their weak humanity. Oh, yes! It was all
of a piece! Why in the name of Folly hadn’t he sent for an able-bodied
man. Were they to be drowned through his cranky obstinacy?

The blows still went on slowly. Presently, however, they seemed to
alternate with other blows—but alas! they were slower, and if
possible feebler!

“Have they got another cripple to work?” roared the Contingent in one
furious voice.

A spontaneous cheer burst from the Contingent, partly as a rebuke to
Sparrell, I think, partly from some shame over their previous rage. He
could take it as he liked.

Still the blows went on distressingly slow. The girls were hoisted on the
men’s shoulders; the men were half submerged. Then there was a painful
pause; then a crumbling crash. Another cheer went up from the canyon.

“It’s down! straight across the trail,” shouted Fairfax, “and a part of
the bank on the top of it.”

There was another moment of suspense. Would it hold or be carried away by
the momentum of the flood? It held! In a few moments Fairfax again gave
voice to the cheering news that the flow had stopped and the submerged
trail was reappearing. In twenty minutes it was clear—a muddy river
bed, but possible of ascent! Of course there was no diminution of the
water in the canyon, which had no outlet, yet it now was possible for the
party to swing from bush to bush along the mountain side until the foot of
the trail—no longer an opposing one—was reached. There were
some missteps and mishaps,—flounderings in the water, and some
dangerous rescues,—but in half an hour the whole concourse stood
upon the trail and commenced the ascent. It was a slow, difficult, and
lugubrious procession—I fear not the best-tempered one, now that the
stimulus of danger and chivalry was past. When they reached the dam made
by the fallen tree, although they were obliged to make a long detour to
avoid its steep sides, they could see how successfully it had diverted the
current to a declivity on the other side.

But strangely enough they were greeted by nothing else! Sparrell and the
youngest Miss Piper were gone; and when they at last reached the highroad,
they were astounded to hear from a passing teamster that no one in the
settlement knew anything of the disaster!

This was the last drop in their cup of bitterness! They who had expected
that the settlement was waiting breathlessly for their rescue, who
anticipated that they would be welcomed as heroes, were obliged to meet
the ill-concealed amusement of passengers and friends at their dishevelled
and bedraggled appearance, which suggested only the blundering mishaps of
an ordinary summer outing! “Boatin’ in the reservoir, and fell in?”
“Playing at canal-boat in the Ditch?” were some of the cheerful
hypotheses. The fleeting sense of gratitude they had felt for their
deliverers was dissipated by the time they had reached their homes, and
their rancor increased by the information that when the earthquake
occurred Mr. Tom Sparrell and Miss Delaware were enjoying a “pasear” in
the forest—he having a half-holiday by virtue of the festival—and
that the earthquake had revived his fears of a catastrophe. The two had
procured axes in the woodman’s hut and did what they thought was necessary
to relieve the situation of the picnickers. But the very modesty of this
account of their own performance had the effect of belittling the
catastrophe itself, and the picnickers’ report of their exceeding peril
was received with incredulous laughter.

For the first time in the history of Red Gulch there was a serious
division between the Piper family, supported by the Contingent, and the
rest of the settlement. Tom Sparrell’s warning was remembered by the
latter, and the ingratitude of the picnickers to their rescuers commented
upon; the actual calamity to the reservoir was more or less attributed to
the imprudent and reckless contiguity of the revelers on that day, and
there were not wanting those who referred the accident itself to the
machinations of the scheming Ditch Director Piper!

It was said that there was a stormy scene in the Piper household that
evening. The judge had demanded that Delaware should break off her
acquaintance with Sparrell, and she had refused; the judge had demanded of
Sparrell’s employer that he should discharge him, and had been met with
the astounding information that Sparrell was already a silent partner in
the concern. At this revelation Judge Piper was alarmed; while he might
object to a clerk who could not support a wife, as a consistent democrat
he could not oppose a fairly prosperous tradesman. A final appeal was made
to Delaware; she was implored to consider the situation of her sisters,
who had all made more ambitious marriages or were about to make them. Why
should she now degrade the family by marrying a country storekeeper?

It is said that here the youngest Miss Piper made a memorable reply, and a
revelation the truth of which was never gainsaid:—

“You all wanter know why I’m going to marry Tom Sparrell?” she queried,
standing up and facing the whole family circle.

“Yes.”

“Why I prefer him to the hull caboodle that you girls have married or are
going to marry?” she continued, meditatively biting the end of her braid.

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s the only man of the whole lot that hasn’t proposed to me
first.”

It is presumed that Sparrell made good the omission, or that the family
were glad to get rid of her, for they were married that autumn. And really
a later comparison of the family records shows that while Captain Fairfax
remained “Captain Fairfax,” and the other sons-in-law did not advance
proportionately in standing or riches, the lame storekeeper of Red Gulch
became the Hon. Senator Tom Sparrell.

A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY

The Widow Wade was standing at her bedroom window staring out, in that
vague instinct which compels humanity in moments of doubt and perplexity
to seek this change of observation or superior illumination. Not that Mrs.
Wade’s disturbance was of a serious character. She had passed the acute
stage of widowhood by at least two years, and the slight redness of her
soft eyelids as well as the droop of her pretty mouth were merely the
recognized outward and visible signs of the grievously minded religious
community in which she lived. The mourning she still wore was also partly
in conformity with the sad-colored garments of her neighbors, and the
necessities of the rainy season. She was in comfortable circumstances, the
mistress of a large ranch in the valley, which had lately become more
valuable by the extension of a wagon road through its centre. She was
simply worrying whether she should go to a “sociable” ending with “a
dance”—a daring innovation of some strangers—at the new hotel,
or continue to eschew such follies, that were, according to local belief,
unsuited to “a vale of tears.”

Indeed at this moment the prospect she gazed abstractedly upon seemed to
justify that lugubrious description. The Santa Ana Valley—a long
monotonous level—was dimly visible through moving curtains of rain
or veils of mist, to the black mourning edge of the horizon, and had
looked like that for months. The valley—in some remote epoch an arm
of the San Francisco Bay—every rainy season seemed to be trying to
revert to its original condition, and, long after the early spring had
laid on its liberal color in strips, bands, and patches of blue and
yellow, the blossoms of mustard and lupine glistened like wet paint.
Nevertheless on that rich alluvial soil Nature’s tears seemed only to
fatten the widow’s acres and increase her crops. Her neighbors, too, were
equally prosperous. Yet for six months of the year the recognized
expression of Santa Ana was one of sadness, and for the other six months—of
resignation. Mrs. Wade had yielded early to this influence, as she had to
others, in the weakness of her gentle nature, and partly as it was more
becoming the singular tragedy that had made her a widow.

The late Mr. Wade had been found dead with a bullet through his head in a
secluded part of the road over Heavy Tree Hill in Sonora County. Near him
lay two other bodies, one afterwards identified as John Stubbs, a resident
of the Hill, and probably a traveling companion of Wade’s, and the other a
noted desperado and highwayman, still masked, as at the moment of the
attack. Wade and his companion had probably sold their lives dearly, and
against odds, for another mask was found on the ground, indicating that
the attack was not single-handed, and as Wade’s body had not yet been
rifled, it was evident that the remaining highwayman had fled in haste.
The hue and cry had been given by apparently the only one of the travelers
who escaped, but as he was hastening to take the overland coach to the
East at the time, his testimony could not be submitted to the coroner’s
deliberation. The facts, however, were sufficiently plain for a verdict of
willful murder against the highwayman, although it was believed that the
absent witness had basely deserted his companion and left him to his fate,
or, as was suggested by others, that he might even have been an
accomplice. It was this circumstance which protracted comment on the
incident, and the sufferings of the widow, far beyond that rapid
obliteration which usually overtook such affairs in the feverish haste of
the early days. It caused her to remove to Santa Ana, where her old father
had feebly ranched a “quarter section” in the valley. He survived her
husband only a few months, leaving her the property, and once more in
mourning. Perhaps this continuity of woe endeared her to a neighborhood
where distinctive ravages of diphtheria or scarlet fever gave a kind of
social preeminence to any household, and she was so sympathetically
assisted by her neighbors in the management of the ranch that, from an
unkempt and wasteful wilderness, it became paying property. The slim,
willowy figure, soft red-lidded eyes, and deep crape of “Sister Wade” at
church or prayer-meeting was grateful to the soul of these gloomy
worshipers, and in time she herself found that the arm of these dyspeptics
of mind and body was nevertheless strong and sustaining. Small wonder that
she should hesitate to-night about plunging into inconsistent, even though
trifling, frivolities.

But apart from this superficial reason, there was another instinctive one
deep down in the recesses of Mrs. Wade’s timid heart which she had kept to
herself, and indeed would have tearfully resented had it been offered by
another. The late Mr. Wade had been, in fact, a singular example of this
kind of frivolous existence carried to a man-like excess. Besides being a
patron of amusements, Mr. Wade gambled, raced, and drank. He was often
home late, and sometimes not at all. Not that this conduct was exceptional
in the “roaring days” of Heavy Tree Hill, but it had given Mrs. Wade
perhaps an undue preference for a less certain, even if a more serious
life. His tragic death was, of course, a kind of martyrdom, which exalted
him in the feminine mind to a saintly memory; yet Mrs. Wade was not
without a certain relief in that. It was voiced, perhaps crudely, by the
widow of Abner Drake in a visit of condolence to the tearful Mrs. Wade a
few days after Wade’s death. “It’s a vale o’ sorrow, Mrs. Wade,” said the
sympathizer, “but it has its ups and downs, and I recken ye’ll be feelin’
soon pretty much as I did about Abner when HE was took. It was mighty
soothin’ and comfortin’ to feel that whatever might happen now, I always
knew just whar Abner was passin’ his nights.” Poor slim Mrs. Wade had no
disquieting sense of humor to interfere with her reception of this large
truth, and she accepted it with a burst of reminiscent tears.

A long volleying shower had just passed down the level landscape, and was
followed by a rolling mist from the warm saturated soil like the smoke of
the discharge. Through it she could see a faint lightening of the hidden
sun, again darkening through a sudden onset of rain, and changing as with
her conflicting doubts and resolutions. Thus gazing, she was vaguely
conscious of an addition to the landscape in the shape of a man who was
passing down the road with a pack on his back like the tramping
“prospectors” she had often seen at Heavy Tree Hill. That memory
apparently settled her vacillating mind; she determined she would NOT go
to the dance. But as she was turning away from the window a second figure,
a horseman, appeared in another direction by a cross-road, a shorter cut
through her domain. This she had no difficulty in recognizing as one of
the strangers who were getting up the dance. She had noticed him at church
on the previous Sunday. As he passed the house he appeared to be gazing at
it so earnestly that she drew back from the window lest she should be
seen. And then, for no reason whatever, she changed her mind once more,
and resolved to go to the dance. Gravely announcing this fact to the wife
of her superintendent who kept house with her in her loneliness, she
thought nothing more about it. She should go in her mourning, with perhaps
the addition of a white collar and frill.

It was evident, however, that Santa Ana thought a good deal more than she
did of this new idea, which seemed a part of the innovation already begun
by the building up of the new hotel. It was argued by some that as the new
church and new schoolhouse had been opened by prayer, it was only natural
that a lighter festivity should inaugurate the opening of the hotel. “I
reckon that dancin’ is about the next thing to travelin’ for gettin’ up an
appetite for refreshments, and that’s what the landlord is kalkilatin’ to
sarve,” was the remark of a gloomy but practical citizen on the veranda of
“The Valley Emporium.” “That’s so,” rejoined a bystander; “and I notice on
that last box o’ pills I got for chills the directions say that a little
‘agreeable exercise’—not too violent—is a great assistance to
the working o’ the pills.”

“I reckon that that Mr. Brooks who’s down here lookin’ arter mill
property, got up the dance. He’s bin round town canvassin’ all the women
folks and drummin’ up likely gals for it. They say he actooally sent an
invite to the Widder Wade,” remarked another lounger. “Gosh! he’s got
cheek!”

“Well, gentlemen,” said the proprietor judicially, “while we don’t intend
to hev any minin’ camp fandangos or ‘Frisco falals round Santa Any—(Santa
Ana was proud of its simple agricultural virtues)—I ain’t so
hard-shelled as not to give new things a fair trial. And, after all, it’s
the women folk that has the say about it. Why, there’s old Miss Ford sez
she hasn’t kicked a fut sence she left Mizoori, but wouldn’t mind trying
it agin. Ez to Brooks takin’ that trouble—well, I suppose it’s along
o’ his bein’ HEALTHY!” He heaved a deep dyspeptic sigh, which was faintly
echoed by the others. “Why, look at him now, ridin’ round on that black
hoss o’ his, in the wet since daylight and not carin’ for blind chills or
rhumatiz!”

He was looking at a serape-draped horseman, the one the widow had seen on
the previous night, who was now cantering slowly up the street. Seeing the
group on the veranda, he rode up, threw himself lightly from his saddle,
and joined them. He was an alert, determined, good-looking fellow of about
thirty-five, whose smooth, smiling face hardly commended itself to Santa
Ana, though his eyes were distinctly sympathetic. He glanced at the
depressed group around him and became ominously serious.

“When did it happen?” he asked gravely.

“What happen?” said the nearest bystander.

“The Funeral, Flood, Fight, or Fire. Which of the four F’s was it?”

“What are ye talkin’ about?” said the proprietor stiffly, scenting some
dangerous humor.

“YOU,” said Brooks promptly. “You’re all standing here, croaking like
crows, this fine morning. I passed YOUR farm, Johnson, not an hour ago;
the wheat just climbing out of the black adobe mud as thick as rows of
pins on paper—what have YOU to grumble at? I saw YOUR stock, Briggs,
over on Two-Mile Bottom, waddling along, fat as the adobe they were
sticking in, their coats shining like fresh paint—what’s the matter
with YOU? And,” turning to the proprietor, “there’s YOUR shed, Saunders,
over on the creek, just bursting with last year’s grain that you know has
gone up two hundred per cent. since you bought it at a bargain—what
are YOU growling at? It’s enough to provoke a fire or a famine to hear you
groaning—and take care it don’t, some day, as a lesson to you.”

All this was so perfectly true of the prosperous burghers that they could
not for a moment reply. But Briggs had recourse to what he believed to be
a retaliatory taunt.

“I heard you’ve been askin’ Widow Wade to come to your dance,” he said,
with a wink at the others. “Of course she said ‘Yes.’”

“Of course she did,” returned Brooks coolly. “I’ve just got her note.”

“What?” ejaculated the three men together. “Mrs. Wade comin’?”

“Certainly! Why shouldn’t she? And it would do YOU good to come too, and
shake the limp dampness out o’ you,” returned Brooks, as he quietly
remounted his horse and cantered away.

“Darned ef I don’t think he’s got his eye on the widder,” said Johnson
faintly.

“Or the quarter section,” added Briggs gloomily.

For all that, the eventful evening came, with many lights in the staring,
undraped windows of the hotel, coldly bright bunting on the still damp
walls of the long dining-room, and a gentle downpour from the hidden skies
above. A close carryall was especially selected to bring Mrs. Wade and her
housekeeper. The widow arrived, looking a little slimmer than usual in her
closely buttoned black dress, white collar and cuffs, very glistening in
eye and in hair,—whose glossy black ringlets were perhaps more
elaborately arranged than was her custom,—and with a faint coming
and going of color, due perhaps to her agitation at this tentative
reentering into worldly life, which was nevertheless quite virginal in
effect. A vague solemnity pervaded the introductory proceedings, and a
singular want of sociability was visible in the “sociable” part of the
entertainment. People talked in whispers or with that grave precision
which indicates good manners in rural communities; conversed painfully
with other people whom they did not want to talk to rather than appear to
be alone, or rushed aimlessly together like water drops, and then floated
in broken, adherent masses over the floor. The widow became a helpless,
religious centre of deacons and Sunday-school teachers, which Brooks,
untiring, yet fruitless, in his attempt to produce gayety, tried in vain
to break. To this gloom the untried dangers of the impending dance, duly
prefigured by a lonely cottage piano and two violins in a desert of
expanse, added a nervous chill. When at last the music struck up—somewhat
hesitatingly and protestingly, from the circumstance that the player was
the church organist, and fumbled mechanically for his stops, the attempt
to make up a cotillon set was left to the heroic Brooks. Yet he barely
escaped disaster when, in posing the couples, he incautiously begged them
to look a little less as if they were waiting for the coffin to be borne
down the aisle between them, and was rewarded by a burst of tears from
Mrs. Johnson, who had lost a child two years before, and who had to be led
away, while her place in the set was taken by another. Yet the cotillon
passed off; a Spanish dance succeeded; “Moneymusk,” with the Virginia
Reel, put a slight intoxicating vibration into the air, and healthy youth
at last asserted itself in a score of freckled but buxom girls in white
muslin, with romping figures and laughter, at the lower end of the room.
Still a rigid decorum reigned among the elder dancers, and the figures
were called out in grave formality, as if, to Brooks’s fancy, they were
hymns given from the pulpit, until at the close of the set, in half-real,
half-mock despair, he turned desperately to Mrs. Wade, his partner:—

“Do you waltz?”

Mrs. Wade hesitated. She HAD, before marriage, and was a good waltzer. “I
do,” she said timidly, “but do you think they”—

But before the poor widow could formulate her fears as to the reception of
“round dances,” Brooks had darted to the piano, and the next moment she
heard with a “fearful joy” the opening bars of a waltz. It was an old
Julien waltz, fresh still in the fifties, daring, provocative to foot,
swamping to intellect, arresting to judgment, irresistible, supreme!
Before Mrs. Wade could protest, Brooks’s arm had gathered up her slim
figure, and with one quick backward sweep and swirl they were off! The
floor was cleared for them in a sudden bewilderment of alarm—a
suspense of burning curiosity. The widow’s little feet tripped quickly,
her long black skirt swung out; as she turned the corner there was not
only a sudden revelation of her pretty ankles, but, what was more
startling, a dazzling flash of frilled and laced petticoat, which at once
convinced every woman in the room that the act had been premeditated for
days! Yet even that criticism was presently forgotten in the pervading
intoxication of the music and the movement. The younger people fell into
it with wild rompings, whirlings, and clasping of hands and waists. And
stranger than all, a corybantic enthusiasm seized upon the emotionally
religious, and those priests and priestesses of Cybele who were famous for
their frenzy and passion in camp-meeting devotions seemed to find an equal
expression that night in the waltz. And when, flushed and panting, Mrs.
Wade at last halted on the arm of her partner, they were nearly knocked
over by the revolving Johnson and Mrs. Stubbs in a whirl of gloomy
exultation! Deacons and Sunday-school teachers waltzed together until the
long room shook, and the very bunting on the walls waved and fluttered
with the gyrations of those religious dervishes. Nobody knew—nobody
cared how long this frenzy lasted—it ceased only with the collapse
of the musicians. Then, with much vague bewilderment, inward trepidation,
awkward and incoherent partings, everybody went dazedly home; there was no
other dancing after that—the waltz was the one event of the festival
and of the history of Santa Ana. And later that night, when the timid Mrs.
Wade, in the seclusion of her own room and the disrobing of her slim
figure, glanced at her spotless frilled and laced petticoat lying on a
chair, a faint smile—the first of her widowhood—curved the
corners of her pretty mouth.

A week of ominous silence regarding the festival succeeded in Santa Ana.
The local paper gave the fullest particulars of the opening of the hotel,
but contented itself with saying: “The entertainment concluded with a
dance.” Mr. Brooks, who felt himself compelled to call upon his late
charming partner twice during the week, characteristically soothed her
anxieties as to the result. “The fact of it is, Mrs. Wade, there’s really
nobody in particular to blame—and that’s what gets them. They’re all
mixed up in it, deacons and Sunday-school teachers; and when old Johnson
tried to be nasty the other evening and hoped you hadn’t suffered from
your exertions that night, I told him you hadn’t quite recovered yet from
the physical shock of having been run into by him and Mrs. Stubbs, but
that, you being a lady, you didn’t tell just how you felt at the
exhibition he and she made of themselves. That shut him up.”

“But you shouldn’t have said that,” said Mrs. Wade with a frightened
little smile.

“No matter,” returned Brooks cheerfully. “I’ll take the blame of it with
the others. You see they’ll have to have a scapegoat—and I’m just
the man, for I got up the dance! And as I’m going away, I suppose I shall
bear off the sin with me into the wilderness.”

“You’re going away?” repeated Mrs. Wade in more genuine concern.

“Not for long,” returned Brooks laughingly. “I came here to look up a mill
site, and I’ve found it. Meantime I think I’ve opened their eyes.”

“You have opened mine,” said the widow with timid frankness.

They were soft pretty eyes when opened, in spite of their heavy red lids,
and Mr. Brooks thought that Santa Ana would be no worse if they remained
open. Possibly he looked it, for Mrs. Wade said hurriedly, “I mean—that
is—I’ve been thinking that life needn’t ALWAYS be as gloomy as we
make it here. And even HERE, you know, Mr. Brooks, we have six months’
sunshine—though we always forget it in the rainy season.”

“That’s so,” said Brooks cheerfully. “I once lost a heap of money through
my own foolishness, and I’ve managed to forget it, and I even reckon to
get it back again out of Santa Ana if my mill speculation holds good. So
good-by, Mrs. Wade—but not for long.” He shook her hand frankly and
departed, leaving the widow conscious of a certain sympathetic confidence
and a little grateful for—she knew not what.

This feeling remained with her most of the afternoon, and even imparted a
certain gayety to her spirits, to the extent of causing her to hum softly
to herself; the air being oddly enough the Julien Waltz. And when, later
in the day, the shadows were closing in with the rain, word was brought to
her that a stranger wished to see her in the sitting-room, she carried a
less mournful mind to this function of her existence. For Mrs. Wade was
accustomed to give audience to traveling agents, tradesmen, working-hands
and servants, as chatelaine of her ranch, and the occasion was not novel.
Yet on entering the room, which she used partly as an office, she found
some difficulty in classifying the stranger, who at first glance reminded
her of the tramping miner she had seen that night from her window. He was
rather incongruously dressed, some articles of his apparel being finer
than others; he wore a diamond pin in a scarf folded over a rough
“hickory” shirt; his light trousers were tucked in common mining boots
that bore stains of travel and a suggestion that he had slept in his
clothes. What she could see of his unshaven face in that uncertain light
expressed a kind of dogged concentration, overlaid by an assumption of
ease. He got up as she came in, and with a slight “How do, ma’am,” shut
the door behind her and glanced furtively around the room.

“What I’ve got to say to ye, Mrs. Wade,—as I reckon you be,—is
strictly private and confidential! Why, ye’ll see afore I get through. But
I thought I might just as well caution ye agin our being disturbed.”

Overcoming a slight instinct of repulsion, Mrs. Wade returned, “You can
speak to me here; no one will interrupt you—unless I call them,” she
added with a little feminine caution.

“And I reckon ye won’t do that,” he said with a grim smile. “You are the
widow o’ Pulaski Wade, late o’ Heavy Tree Hill, I reckon?”

“I am,” said Mrs. Wade.

“And your husband’s buried up thar in the graveyard, with a monument over
him setting forth his virtues ez a Christian and a square man and a
high-minded citizen? And that he was foully murdered by highwaymen?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wade, “that is the inscription.”

“Well, ma’am, a bigger pack o’ lies never was cut on stone!”

Mrs. Wade rose, half in indignation, half in terror.

“Keep your sittin’,” said the stranger, with a warning wave of his hand.
“Wait till I’m through, and then you call in the hull State o’ Californy,
ef ye want.”

The stranger’s manner was so doggedly confident that Mrs. Wade sank back
tremblingly in her chair. The man put his slouch hat on his knee, twirled
it round once or twice, and then said with the same stubborn deliberation:—

“The highwayman in that business was your husband—Pulaski Wade—and
his gang, and he was killed by one o’ the men he was robbin’. Ye see,
ma’am, it used to be your husband’s little game to rope in three or four
strangers in a poker deal at Spanish Jim’s saloon—I see you’ve heard
o’ the place,” he interpolated as Mrs. Wade drew back suddenly—“and
when he couldn’t clean ‘em out in that way, or they showed a little more
money than they played, he’d lay for ‘em with his gang in a lone part of
the trail, and go through them like any road agent. That’s what he did
that night—and that’s how he got killed.”

“How do you know this?” said Mrs. Wade, with quivering lips.

“I was one o’ the men he went through before he was killed. And I’d hev
got my money back, but the rest o’ the gang came up, and I got away jest
in time to save my life and nothin’ else. Ye might remember thar was one
man got away and giv’ the alarm, but he was goin’ on to the States by the
overland coach that night and couldn’t stay to be a witness. I was that
man. I had paid my passage through, and I couldn’t lose THAT too with my
other money, so I went.”

Mrs. Wade sat stunned. She remembered the missing witness, and how she had
longed to see the man who was last with her husband; she remembered
Spanish Jim’s saloon—his well-known haunt; his frequent and
unaccountable absences, the sudden influx of money which he always said he
had won at cards; the diamond ring he had given her as the result of “a
bet;” the forgotten recurrence of other robberies by a secret masked gang;
a hundred other things that had worried her, instinctively, vaguely. She
knew now, too, the meaning of the unrest that had driven her from Heavy
Tree Hill—the strange unformulated fears that had haunted her even
here. Yet with all this she felt, too, her present weakness—knew
that this man had taken her at a disadvantage, that she ought to
indignantly assert herself, deny everything, demand proof, and brand him a
slanderer!

“How did—you—know it was my husband?” she stammered.

“His mask fell off in the fight; you know another mask was found—it
was HIS. I saw him as plainly as I see him there!” he pointed to a
daguerreotype of her husband which stood upon her desk.

Mrs. Wade could only stare vacantly, hopelessly. After a pause the man
continued in a less aggressive manner and more confidential tone, which,
however, only increased her terror. “I ain’t sayin’ that YOU knowed
anything about this, ma’am, and whatever other folks might say when THEY
know of it, I’ll allers say that you didn’t.”

“What, then, did you come here for?” said the widow desperately.

“What do I come here for?” repeated the man grimly, looking around the
room; “what did I come to this yer comfortable home—this yer big
ranch and to a rich woman like yourself for? Well, Mrs. Wade, I come to
get the six hundred dollars your husband robbed me of, that’s all! I ain’t
askin’ more! I ain’t askin’ interest! I ain’t askin’ compensation for
havin’ to run for my life—and,” again looking grimly round the
walls, “I ain’t askin’ more than you will give—or is my rights.”

“But this house never was his; it was my father’s,” gasped Mrs. Wade; “you
have no right”—

“Mebbe ‘yes’ and mebbe ‘no,’ Mrs. Wade,” interrupted the man, with a wave
of his hat; “but how about them two checks to bearer for two hundred
dollars each found among your husband’s effects, and collected by your
lawyer for you—MY CHECKS, Mrs. Wade?”

A wave of dreadful recollection overwhelmed her. She remembered the checks
found upon her husband’s body, known only to her and her lawyer, believed
to be gambling gains, and collected at once under his legal advice. Yet
she made one more desperate effort in spite of the instinct that told her
he was speaking the truth.

“But you shall have to prove it—before witnesses.”

“Do you WANT me to prove it before witnesses?” said the man, coming nearer
her. “Do you want to take my word and keep it between ourselves, or do you
want to call in your superintendent and his men, and all Santy Any, to
hear me prove your husband was a highwayman, thief, and murderer? Do you
want to knock over that monument on Heavy Tree Hill, and upset your
standing here among the deacons and elders? Do you want to do all this and
be forced, even by your neighbors, to pay me in the end, as you will? Ef
you do, call in your witnesses now and let’s have it over. Mebbe it would
look better ef I got the money out of YOUR FRIENDS than ye—a woman!
P’raps you’re right!”

He made a step towards the door, but she stopped him.

“No! no! wait! It’s a large sum—I haven’t it with me,” she
stammered, thoroughly beaten.

“Ye kin get it.”

“Give me time!” she implored. “Look! I’ll give you a hundred down now,—all
I have here,—the rest another time!” She nervously opened a drawer
of her desk and taking out a buckskin bag of gold thrust it in his hand.
“There! go away now!” She lifted her thin hands despairingly to her head.
“Go! do!”

The man seemed struck by her manner. “I don’t want to be hard on a woman,”
he said slowly. “I’ll go now and come back again at nine to-night. You can
git the money, or what’s as good, a check to bearer, by then. And ef ye’ll
take my advice, you won’t ask no advice from others, ef you want to keep
your secret. Just now it’s safe with me; I’m a square man, ef I seem to be
a hard one.” He made a gesture as if to take her hand, but as she drew
shrinkingly away, he changed it to an awkward bow, and the next moment was
gone.

She started to her feet, but the unwonted strain upon her nerves and frail
body had been greater than she knew. She made a step forward, felt the
room whirl round her and then seem to collapse beneath her feet, and,
clutching at her chair, sank back into it, fainting.

How long she lay there she never knew. She was at last conscious of some
one bending over her, and a voice—the voice of Mr. Brooks—in
her ear, saying, “I beg your pardon; you seem ill. Shall I call some one?”

“No!” she gasped, quickly recovering herself with an effort, and staring
round her. “Where is—when did you come in?”

“Only this moment. I was leaving tonight, sooner than I expected, and
thought I’d say good-by. They told me that you had been engaged with a
stranger, but he had just gone. I beg your pardon—I see you are ill.
I won’t detain you any longer.”

“No! no! don’t go! I am better—better,” she said feverishly. As she
glanced at his strong and sympathetic face a wild idea seized her. He was
a stranger here, an alien to these people, like herself. The advice that
she dare not seek from others, from her half-estranged religious friends,
from even her superintendent and his wife, dare she ask from him? Perhaps
he saw this frightened doubt, this imploring appeal, in her eyes, for he
said gently, “Is it anything I can do for you?”

“Yes,” she said, with the sudden desperation of weakness; “I want you to
keep a secret.”

“Yours?—yes!” he said promptly.

Whereat poor Mrs. Wade instantly burst into tears. Then, amidst her sobs,
she told him of the stranger’s visit, of his terrible accusations, of his
demands, his expected return, and her own utter helplessness. To her
terror, as she went on she saw a singular change in his kind face; he was
following her with hard, eager intensity. She had half hoped, even through
her fateful instincts, that he might have laughed, manlike, at her fears,
or pooh-poohed the whole thing. But he did not. “You say he positively
recognized your husband?” he repeated quickly.

“Yes, yes!” sobbed the widow, “and knew that daguerreotype!” she pointed
to the desk.

Brooks turned quickly in that direction. Luckily his back was towards her,
and she could not see his face, and the quick, startled look that came
into his eyes. But when they again met hers, it was gone, and even their
eager intensity had changed to a gentle commiseration. “You have only his
word for it, Mrs. Wade,” he said gently, “and in telling your secret to
another, you have shorn the rascal of half his power over you. And he knew
it. Now, dismiss the matter from your mind and leave it all to me. I will
be here a few minutes before nine—AND ALONE IN THIS ROOM. Let your
visitor be shown in here, and don’t let us be disturbed. Don’t be
alarmed,” he added with a faint twinkle in his eye, “there will be no fuss
and no exposure!”

It lacked a few minutes of nine when Mr. Brooks was ushered into the
sitting-room. As soon as he was alone he quietly examined the door and the
windows, and having satisfied himself, took his seat in a chair casually
placed behind the door. Presently he heard the sound of voices and a heavy
footstep in the passage. He lightly felt his waistcoat pocket—it
contained a pretty little weapon of power and precision, with a barrel
scarcely two inches long.

The door opened, and the person outside entered the room. In an instant
Brooks had shut the door and locked it behind him. The man turned
fiercely, but was faced by Brooks quietly, with one finger calmly hooked
in his waistcoat pocket. The man slightly recoiled from him—not as
much from fear as from some vague stupefaction. “What’s that for? What’s
your little game?” he said half contemptuously.

“No game at all,” returned Brooks coolly. “You came here to sell a secret.
I don’t propose to have it given away first to any listener.”

“YOU don’t—who are YOU?”

“That’s a queer question to ask of the man you are trying to personate—but
I don’t wonder! You’re doing it d——d badly.”

“Personate—YOU?” said the stranger, with staring eyes.

“Yes, ME,” said Brooks quietly. “I am the only man who escaped from the
robbery that night at Heavy Tree Hill and who went home by the Overland
Coach.”

The stranger stared, but recovered himself with a coarse laugh. “Oh, well!
we’re on the same lay, it appears! Both after the widow—afore we
show up her husband.”

“Not exactly,” said Brooks, with his eyes fixed intently on the stranger.
“You are here to denounce a highwayman who is DEAD and escaped justice. I
am here to denounce one who is LIVING!—Stop! drop your hand; it’s no
use. You thought you had to deal only with a woman to-night, and your
revolver isn’t quite handy enough. There! down!—down! So! That’ll
do.”

“You can’t prove it,” said the man hoarsely.

“Fool! In your story to that woman you have given yourself away. There
were but two travelers attacked by the highwaymen. One was killed—I
am the other. Where do YOU come in? What witness can you be—except
as the highwayman that you are? Who is left to identify Wade but—his
accomplice!”

The man’s suddenly whitened face made his unshaven beard seem to bristle
over his face like some wild animal’s. “Well, ef you kalkilate to blow me,
you’ve got to blow Wade and his widder too. Jest you remember that,” he
said whiningly.

“I’ve thought of that,” said Brooks coolly, “and I calculate that to
prevent it is worth about that hundred dollars you got from that poor
woman—and no more! Now, sit down at that table, and write as I
dictate.”

The man looked at him in wonder, but obeyed.

“Write,” said Brooks, “‘I hereby certify that my accusations against the
late Pulaski Wade of Heavy Tree Hill are erroneous and groundless, and the
result of mistaken identity, especially in regard to any complicity of his
in the robbery of John Stubbs, deceased, and Henry Brooks, at Heavy Tree
Hill, on the night of the 13th August, 1854.’”

The man looked up with a repulsive smile. “Who’s the fool now, Cap’n?
What’s become of your hold on the widder, now?”

“Write!” said Brooks fiercely.

The sound of a pen hurriedly scratching paper followed this first outburst
of the quiet Brooks.

“Sign it,” said Brooks.

The man signed it.

“Now go,” said Brooks, unlocking the door, “but remember, if you should
ever be inclined to revisit Santa Ana, you will find ME living here also.”

The man slunk out of the door and into the passage like a wild animal
returning to the night and darkness. Brooks took up the paper, rejoined
Mrs. Wade in the parlor, and laid it before her.

“But,” said the widow, trembling even in her joy, “do you—do you
think he was REALLY mistaken?”

“Positive,” said Brooks coolly. “It’s true, it’s a mistake that has cost
you a hundred dollars, but there are some mistakes that are worth that to
be kept quiet.”

They were married a year later; but there is no record that in after years
of conjugal relations with a weak, charming, but sometimes trying woman,
Henry Brooks was ever tempted to tell her the whole truth of the robbery
of Heavy Tree Hill.

THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT

Some forty years ago, on the northern coast of California, near the Golden
Gate, stood a lighthouse. Of a primitive class, since superseded by a
building more in keeping with the growing magnitude of the adjacent port,
it attracted little attention from the desolate shore, and, it was
alleged, still less from the desolate sea beyond. A gray structure of
timber, stone, and glass, it was buffeted and harried by the constant
trade winds, baked by the unclouded six months’ sun, lost for a few hours
in the afternoon sea-fog, and laughed over by circling guillemots from the
Farallones. It was kept by a recluse—a preoccupied man of scientific
tastes, who, in shameless contrast to his fellow immigrants, had applied
to the government for this scarcely lucrative position as a means of
securing the seclusion he valued more than gold. Some believed that he was
the victim of an early disappointment in love—a view charitably
taken by those who also believed that the government would not have
appointed “a crank” to a position of responsibility. Howbeit, he fulfilled
his duties, and, with the assistance of an Indian, even cultivated a small
patch of ground beside the lighthouse. His isolation was complete! There
was little to attract wanderers here: the nearest mines were fifty miles
away; the virgin forest on the mountains inland were penetrated only by
sawmills and woodmen from the Bay settlements, equally remote. Although by
the shore-line the lights of the great port were sometimes plainly
visible, yet the solitude around him was peopled only by Indians,—a
branch of the great northern tribe of “root-diggers,”—peaceful and
simple in their habits, as yet undisturbed by the white man, nor stirred
into antagonism by aggression. Civilization only touched him at stated
intervals, and then by the more expeditious sea from the government boat
that brought him supplies. But for his contiguity to the perpetual turmoil
of wind and sea, he might have passed a restful Arcadian life in his
surroundings; for even his solitude was sometimes haunted by this faint
reminder of the great port hard by that pulsated with an equal unrest.
Nevertheless, the sands before his door and the rocks behind him seemed to
have been untrodden by any other white man’s foot since their upheaval
from the ocean. It was true that the little bay beside him was marked on
the map as “Sir Francis Drake’s Bay,” tradition having located it as the
spot where that ingenious pirate and empire-maker had once landed his
vessels and scraped the barnacles from his adventurous keels. But of this
Edgar Pomfrey—or “Captain Pomfrey,” as he was called by virtue of
his half-nautical office—had thought little.

For the first six months he had thoroughly enjoyed his seclusion. In the
company of his books, of which he had brought such a fair store that their
shelves lined his snug corners to the exclusion of more comfortable
furniture, he found his principal recreation. Even his unwonted manual
labor, the trimming of his lamp and cleaning of his reflectors, and his
personal housekeeping, in which his Indian help at times assisted, he
found a novel and interesting occupation. For outdoor exercise, a ramble
on the sands, a climb to the rocky upland, or a pull in the lighthouse
boat, amply sufficed him. “Crank” as he was supposed to be, he was sane
enough to guard against any of those early lapses into barbarism which
marked the lives of some solitary gold-miners. His own taste, as well as
the duty of his office, kept his person and habitation sweet and clean,
and his habits regular. Even the little cultivated patch of ground on the
lee side of the tower was symmetrical and well ordered. Thus the outward
light of Captain Pomfrey shone forth over the wilderness of shore and
wave, even like his beacon, whatever his inward illumination may have
been.

It was a bright summer morning, remarkable even in the monotonous
excellence of the season, with a slight touch of warmth which the
invincible Northwest Trades had not yet chilled. There was still a faint
haze off the coast, as if last night’s fog had been caught in the quick
sunshine, and the shining sands were hot, but without the usual dazzling
glare. A faint perfume from a quaint lilac-colored beach-flower, whose
clustering heads dotted the sand like bits of blown spume, took the place
of that smell of the sea which the odorless Pacific lacked. A few rocks,
half a mile away, lifted themselves above the ebb tide at varying heights
as they lay on the trough of the swell, were crested with foam by a
striking surge, or cleanly erased in the full sweep of the sea. Beside,
and partly upon one of the higher rocks, a singular object was moving.

Pomfrey was interested but not startled. He had once or twice seen seals
disporting on these rocks, and on one occasion a sea-lion,—an estray
from the familiar rocks on the other side of the Golden Gate. But he
ceased work in his garden patch, and coming to his house, exchanged his
hoe for a telescope. When he got the mystery in focus he suddenly stopped
and rubbed the object-glass with his handkerchief. But even when he
applied the glass to his eye for a second time, he could scarcely believe
his eyesight. For the object seemed to be a WOMAN, the lower part of her
figure submerged in the sea, her long hair depending over her shoulders
and waist. There was nothing in her attitude to suggest terror or that she
was the victim of some accident. She moved slowly and complacently with
the sea, and even—a more staggering suggestion—appeared to be
combing out the strands of her long hair with her fingers. With her body
half concealed she might have been a mermaid!

He swept the foreshore and horizon with his glass; there was neither boat
nor ship—nor anything that moved, except the long swell of the
Pacific. She could have come only from the sea; for to reach the rocks by
land she would have had to pass before the lighthouse, while the narrow
strip of shore which curved northward beyond his range of view he knew was
inhabited only by Indians. But the woman was unhesitatingly and
appallingly WHITE, and her hair light even to a golden gleam in the
sunshine.

Pomfrey was a gentleman, and as such was amazed, dismayed, and cruelly
embarrassed. If she was a simple bather from some vicinity hitherto
unknown and unsuspected by him, it was clearly his business to shut up his
glass and go back to his garden patch—although the propinquity of
himself and the lighthouse must have been as plainly visible to her as she
was to him. On the other hand, if she was the survivor of some wreck and
in distress—or, as he even fancied from her reckless manner, bereft
of her senses, his duty to rescue her was equally clear. In his dilemma he
determined upon a compromise and ran to his boat. He would pull out to
sea, pass between the rocks and the curving sand-spit, and examine the
sands and sea more closely for signs of wreckage, or some overlooked
waiting boat near the shore. He would be within hail if she needed him, or
she could escape to her boat if she had one.

In another moment his boat was lifting on the swell towards the rocks. He
pulled quickly, occasionally turning to note that the strange figure,
whose movements were quite discernible to the naked eye, was still there,
but gazing more earnestly towards the nearest shore for any sign of life
or occupation. In ten minutes he had reached the curve where the trend
opened northward, and the long line of shore stretched before him. He
swept it eagerly with a single searching glance. Sea and shore were empty.
He turned quickly to the rock, scarcely a hundred yards on his beam. It
was empty too! Forgetting his previous scruples, he pulled directly for it
until his keel grated on its submerged base. There was nothing there but
the rock, slippery with the yellow-green slime of seaweed and kelp—neither
trace nor sign of the figure that had occupied it a moment ago. He pulled
around it; there was no cleft or hiding-place. For an instant his heart
leaped at the sight of something white, caught in a jagged tooth of the
outlying reef, but it was only the bleached fragment of a bamboo
orange-crate, cast from the deck of some South Sea trader, such as often
strewed the beach. He lay off the rock, keeping way in the swell, and
scrutinizing the glittering sea. At last he pulled back to the lighthouse,
perplexed and discomfited.

Was it simply a sporting seal, transformed by some trick of his vision?
But he had seen it through his glass, and now remembered such details as
the face and features framed in their contour of golden hair, and believed
he could even have identified them. He examined the rock again with his
glass, and was surprised to see how clearly it was outlined now in its
barren loneliness. Yet he must have been mistaken. His scientific and
accurate mind allowed of no errant fancy, and he had always sneered at the
marvelous as the result of hasty or superficial observation. He was a
little worried at this lapse of his healthy accuracy,—fearing that
it might be the result of his seclusion and loneliness,—akin to the
visions of the recluse and solitary. It was strange, too, that it should
take the shape of a woman; for Edgar Pomfrey had a story—the usual
old and foolish one.

Then his thoughts took a lighter phase, and he turned to the memory of his
books, and finally to the books themselves. From a shelf he picked out a
volume of old voyages, and turned to a remembered passage: “In other seas
doe abound marvells soche as Sea Spyders of the bigness of a pinnace, the
wich they have been known to attack and destroy; Sea Vypers which reach to
the top of a goodly maste, whereby they are able to draw marinners from
the rigging by the suction of their breathes; and Devill Fyshe, which
vomit fire by night which makyth the sea to shine prodigiously, and
mermaydes. They are half fyshe and half mayde of grate Beauty, and have
been seen of divers godly and creditable witnesses swymming beside rocks,
hidden to their waist in the sea, combing of their hayres, to the help of
whych they carry a small mirrore of the bigness of their fingers.” Pomfrey
laid the book aside with a faint smile. To even this credulity he might
come!

Nevertheless, he used the telescope again that day. But there was no
repetition of the incident, and he was forced to believe that he had been
the victim of some extraordinary illusion. The next morning, however, with
his calmer judgment doubts began to visit him. There was no one of whom he
could make inquiries but his Indian helper, and their conversation had
usually been restricted to the language of signs or the use of a few words
he had picked up. He contrived, however, to ask if there was a “waugee”
(white) woman in the neighborhood. The Indian shook his head in surprise.
There was no “waugee” nearer than the remote mountain-ridge to which he
pointed. Pomfrey was obliged to be content with this. Even had his
vocabulary been larger, he would as soon have thought of revealing the
embarrassing secret of this woman, whom he believed to be of his own race,
to a mere barbarian as he would of asking him to verify his own
impressions by allowing him to look at her that morning. The next day,
however, something happened which forced him to resume his inquiries. He
was rowing around the curving spot when he saw a number of black objects
on the northern sands moving in and out of the surf, which he presently
made out as Indians. A nearer approach satisfied him that they were wading
squaws and children gathering seaweed and shells. He would have pushed his
acquaintance still nearer, but as his boat rounded the point, with one
accord they all scuttled away like frightened sandpipers. Pomfrey, on his
return, asked his Indian retainer if they could swim. “Oh, yes!” “As far
as the rock?” “Yes.” Yet Pomfrey was not satisfied. The color of his
strange apparition remained unaccounted for, and it was not that of an
Indian woman.

Trifling events linger long in a monotonous existence, and it was nearly a
week before Pomfrey gave up his daily telescopic inspection of the rock.
Then he fell back upon his books again, and, oddly enough, upon another
volume of voyages, and so chanced upon the account of Sir Francis Drake’s
occupation of the bay before him. He had always thought it strange that
the great adventurer had left no trace or sign of his sojourn there; still
stranger that he should have overlooked the presence of gold, known even
to the Indians themselves, and have lost a discovery far beyond his
wildest dreams and a treasure to which the cargoes of those Philippine
galleons he had more or less successfully intercepted were trifles. Had
the restless explorer been content to pace those dreary sands during three
weeks of inactivity, with no thought of penetrating the inland forests
behind the range, or of even entering the nobler bay beyond? Or was the
location of the spot a mere tradition as wild and unsupported as the
“marvells” of the other volume? Pomfrey had the skepticism of the
scientific, inquiring mind.

Two weeks had passed and he was returning from a long climb inland, when
he stopped to rest in his descent to the sea. The panorama of the shore
was before him, from its uttermost limit to the lighthouse on the northern
point. The sun was still one hour high, it would take him about that time
to reach home. But from this coign of vantage he could see—what he
had not before observed—that what he had always believed was a
little cove on the northern shore was really the estuary of a small stream
which rose near him and eventually descended into the ocean at that point.
He could also see that beside it was a long low erection of some kind,
covered with thatched brush, which looked like a “barrow,” yet showed
signs of habitation in the slight smoke that rose from it and drifted
inland. It was not far out of his way, and he resolved to return in that
direction. On his way down he once or twice heard the barking of an Indian
dog, and knew that he must be in the vicinity of an encampment. A
camp-fire, with the ashes yet warm, proved that he was on the trail of one
of the nomadic tribes, but the declining sun warned him to hasten home to
his duty. When he at last reached the estuary, he found that the building
beside it was little else than a long hut, whose thatched and
mud-plastered mound-like roof gave it the appearance of a cave. Its single
opening and entrance abutted on the water’s edge, and the smoke he had
noticed rolled through this entrance from a smouldering fire within.
Pomfrey had little difficulty in recognizing the purpose of this strange
structure from the accounts he had heard from “loggers” of the Indian
customs. The cave was a “sweat-house”—a calorific chamber in which
the Indians closely shut themselves, naked, with a “smudge” or smouldering
fire of leaves, until, perspiring and half suffocated, they rushed from
the entrance and threw themselves into the water before it. The still
smouldering fire told him that the house had been used that morning, and
he made no doubt that the Indians were encamped near by. He would have
liked to pursue his researches further, but he found he had already
trespassed upon his remaining time, and he turned somewhat abruptly away—so
abruptly, in fact, that a figure, which had evidently been cautiously
following him at a distance, had not time to get away. His heart leaped
with astonishment. It was the woman he had seen on the rock.

Although her native dress now only disclosed her head and hands, there was
no doubt about her color, and it was distinctly white, save for the
tanning of exposure and a slight red ochre marking on her low forehead.
And her hair, long and unkempt as it was, showed that he had not erred in
his first impression of it. It was a tawny flaxen, with fainter bleachings
where the sun had touched it most. Her eyes were of a clear Northern blue.
Her dress, which was quite distinctive in that it was neither the cast off
finery of civilization nor the cheap “government” flannels and calicoes
usually worn by the Californian tribes, was purely native, and of fringed
deerskin, and consisted of a long, loose shirt and leggings worked with
bright feathers and colored shells. A necklace, also of shells and fancy
pebbles, hung round her neck. She seemed to be a fully developed woman, in
spite of the girlishness of her flowing hair, and notwithstanding the
shapeless length of her gaberdine-like garment, taller than the ordinary
squaw.

Pomfrey saw all this in a single flash of perception, for the next instant
she was gone, disappearing behind the sweat-house. He ran after her,
catching sight of her again, half doubled up, in the characteristic Indian
trot, dodging around rocks and low bushes as she fled along the banks of
the stream. But for her distinguishing hair, she looked in her flight like
an ordinary frightened squaw. This, which gave a sense of unmanliness and
ridicule to his own pursuit of her, with the fact that his hour of duty
was drawing near and he was still far from the lighthouse, checked him in
full career, and he turned regretfully away. He had called after her at
first, and she had not heeded him. What he would have said to her he did
not know. He hastened home discomfited, even embarrassed—yet excited
to a degree he had not deemed possible in himself.

During the morning his thoughts were full of her. Theory after theory for
her strange existence there he examined and dismissed. His first thought,
that she was a white woman—some settler’s wife—masquerading in
Indian garb, he abandoned when he saw her moving; no white woman could
imitate that Indian trot, nor would remember to attempt it if she were
frightened. The idea that she was a captive white, held by the Indians,
became ridiculous when he thought of the nearness of civilization and the
peaceful, timid character of the “digger” tribes. That she was some
unfortunate demented creature who had escaped from her keeper and wandered
into the wilderness, a glance at her clear, frank, intelligent, curious
eyes had contradicted. There was but one theory left—the most
sensible and practical one—that she was the offspring of some white
man and Indian squaw. Yet this he found, oddly enough, the least palatable
to his fancy. And the few half-breeds he had seen were not at all like
her.

The next morning he had recourse to his Indian retainer, “Jim.” With
infinite difficulty, protraction, and not a little embarrassment, he
finally made him understand that he had seen a “white squaw” near the
“sweat-house,” and that he wanted to know more about her. With equal
difficulty Jim finally recognized the fact of the existence of such a
person, but immediately afterwards shook his head in an emphatic negation.
With greater difficulty and greater mortification Pomfrey presently
ascertained that Jim’s negative referred to a supposed abduction of the
woman which he understood that his employer seriously contemplated. But he
also learned that she was a real Indian, and that there were three or four
others like her, male and female, in that vicinity; that from a “skeena
mowitch” (little baby) they were all like that, and that their parents
were of the same color, but never a white or “waugee” man or woman among
them; that they were looked upon as a distinct and superior caste of
Indians, and enjoyed certain privileges with the tribe; that they
superstitiously avoided white men, of whom they had the greatest fear, and
that they were protected in this by the other Indians; that it was
marvelous and almost beyond belief that Pomfrey had been able to see one,
for no other white man had, or was even aware of their existence.

How much of this he actually understood, how much of it was lying and due
to Jim’s belief that he wished to abduct the fair stranger, Pomfrey was
unable to determine. There was enough, however, to excite his curiosity
strongly and occupy his mind to the exclusion of his books—save one.
Among his smaller volumes he had found a travel book of the “Chinook
Jargon,” with a lexicon of many of the words commonly used by the Northern
Pacific tribes. An hour or two’s trial with the astonished Jim gave him an
increased vocabulary and a new occupation. Each day the incongruous pair
took a lesson from the lexicon. In a week Pomfrey felt he would be able to
accost the mysterious stranger. But he did not again surprise her in any
of his rambles, or even in a later visit to the sweat-house. He had
learned from Jim that the house was only used by the “bucks,” or males,
and that her appearance there had been accidental. He recalled that he had
had the impression that she had been stealthily following him, and the
recollection gave him a pleasure he could not account for. But an incident
presently occurred which gave him a new idea of her relations towards him.

The difficulty of making Jim understand had hitherto prevented Pomfrey
from intrusting him with the care of the lantern; but with the aid of the
lexicon he had been able to make him comprehend its working, and under
Pomfrey’s personal guidance the Indian had once or twice lit the lamp and
set its machinery in motion. It remained for him only to test Jim’s
unaided capacity, in case of his own absence or illness. It happened to be
a warm, beautiful sunset, when the afternoon fog had for once delayed its
invasion of the shore-line, that he left the lighthouse to Jim’s undivided
care, and reclining on a sand-dune still warm from the sun, lazily watched
the result of Jim’s first essay. As the twilight deepened, and the first
flash of the lantern strove with the dying glories of the sun, Pomfrey
presently became aware that he was not the only watcher. A little gray
figure creeping on all fours suddenly glided out of the shadow of another
sand-dune and then halted, falling back on its knees, gazing fixedly at
the growing light. It was the woman he had seen. She was not a dozen yards
away, and in her eagerness and utter absorption in the light had evidently
overlooked him. He could see her face distinctly, her lips parted half in
wonder, half with the breathless absorption of a devotee. A faint sense of
disappointment came over him. It was not HIM she was watching, but the
light! As it swelled out over the darkening gray sand she turned as if to
watch its effect around her, and caught sight of Pomfrey. With a little
startled cry—the first she had uttered—she darted away. He did
not follow. A moment before, when he first saw her, an Indian salutation
which he had learned from Jim had risen to his lips, but in the odd
feeling which her fascination of the light had caused him he had not
spoken. He watched her bent figure scuttling away like some frightened
animal, with a critical consciousness that she was really scarce human,
and went back to the lighthouse. He would not run after her again! Yet
that evening he continued to think of her, and recalled her voice, which
struck him now as having been at once melodious and childlike, and wished
he had at least spoken, and perhaps elicited a reply.

He did not, however, haunt the sweat-house near the river again. Yet he
still continued his lessons with Jim, and in this way, perhaps, although
quite unpremeditatedly, enlisted a humble ally. A week passed in which he
had not alluded to her, when one morning, as he was returning from a row,
Jim met him mysteriously on the beach.

“S’pose him come slow, slow,” said Jim gravely, airing his newly acquired
English; “make no noise—plenty catchee Indian maiden.” The last
epithet was the polite lexicon equivalent of squaw.

Pomfrey, not entirely satisfied in his mind, nevertheless softly followed
the noiselessly gliding Jim to the lighthouse. Here Jim cautiously opened
the door, motioning Pomfrey to enter.

The base of the tower was composed of two living rooms, a storeroom and
oil-tank. As Pomfrey entered, Jim closed the door softly behind him. The
abrupt transition from the glare of the sands and sun to the semi-darkness
of the storeroom at first prevented him from seeing anything, but he was
instantly distracted by a scurrying flutter and wild beating of the walls,
as of a caged bird. In another moment he could make out the fair stranger,
quivering with excitement, passionately dashing at the barred window, the
walls, the locked door, and circling around the room in her desperate
attempt to find an egress, like a captured seagull. Amazed, mystified,
indignant with Jim, himself, and even his unfortunate captive, Pomfrey
called to her in Chinook to stop, and going to the door, flung it wide
open. She darted by him, raising her soft blue eyes for an instant in a
swift, sidelong glance of half appeal, half-frightened admiration, and
rushed out into the open. But here, to his surprise, she did not run away.
On the contrary, she drew herself up with a dignity that seemed to
increase her height, and walked majestically towards Jim, who at her
unexpected exit had suddenly thrown himself upon the sand, in utterly
abject terror and supplication. She approached him slowly, with one small
hand uplifted in a menacing gesture. The man writhed and squirmed before
her. Then she turned, caught sight of Pomfrey standing in the doorway, and
walked quietly away. Amazed, yet gratified with this new assertion of
herself, Pomfrey respectfully, but alas! incautiously, called after her.
In an instant, at the sound of his voice, she dropped again into her
slouching Indian trot and glided away over the sandhills.

Pomfrey did not add any reproof of his own to the discomfiture of his
Indian retainer. Neither did he attempt to inquire the secret of this
savage girl’s power over him. It was evident he had spoken truly when he
told his master that she was of a superior caste. Pomfrey recalled her
erect and indignant figure standing over the prostrate Jim, and was again
perplexed and disappointed at her sudden lapse into the timid savage at
the sound of his voice. Would not this well-meant but miserable trick of
Jim’s have the effect of increasing her unreasoning animal-like distrust
of him? A few days later brought an unexpected answer to his question.

It was the hottest hour of the day. He had been fishing off the reef of
rocks where he had first seen her, and had taken in his line and was
leisurely pulling for the lighthouse. Suddenly a little musical cry not
unlike a bird’s struck his ear. He lay on his oars and listened. It was
repeated; but this time it was unmistakably recognizable as the voice of
the Indian girl, although he had heard it but once. He turned eagerly to
the rock, but it was empty; he pulled around it, but saw nothing. He
looked towards the shore, and swung his boat in that direction, when again
the cry was repeated with the faintest quaver of a laugh, apparently on
the level of the sea before him. For the first time he looked down, and
there on the crest of a wave not a dozen yards ahead, danced the yellow
hair and laughing eyes of the girl. The frightened gravity of her look was
gone, lost in the flash of her white teeth and quivering dimples as her
dripping face rose above the sea. When their eyes met she dived again, but
quickly reappeared on the other bow, swimming with lazy, easy strokes, her
smiling head thrown back over her white shoulder, as if luring him to a
race. If her smile was a revelation to him, still more so was this first
touch of feminine coquetry in her attitude. He pulled eagerly towards her;
with a few long overhand strokes she kept her distance, or, if he
approached too near, she dived like a loon, coming up astern of him with
the same childlike, mocking cry. In vain he pursued her, calling her to
stop in her own tongue, and laughingly protested; she easily avoided his
boat at every turn. Suddenly, when they were nearly abreast of the river
estuary, she rose in the water, and, waving her little hands with a
gesture of farewell, turned, and curving her back like a dolphin, leaped
into the surging swell of the estuary bar and was lost in its foam. It
would have been madness for him to have attempted to follow in his boat,
and he saw that she knew it. He waited until her yellow crest appeared in
the smoother water of the river, and then rowed back. In his excitement
and preoccupation he had quite forgotten his long exposure to the sun
during his active exercise, and that he was poorly equipped for the cold
sea-fog which the heat had brought in earlier, and which now was quietly
obliterating sea and shore. This made his progress slower and more
difficult, and by the time he had reached the lighthouse he was chilled to
the bone.

The next morning he woke with a dull headache and great weariness, and it
was with considerable difficulty that he could attend to his duties. At
nightfall, feeling worse, he determined to transfer the care of the light
to Jim, but was amazed to find that he had disappeared, and what was more
ominous, a bottle of spirits which Pomfrey had taken from his locker the
night before had disappeared too. Like all Indians, Jim’s rudimentary
knowledge of civilization included “fire-water;” he evidently had been
tempted, had fallen, and was too ashamed or too drunk to face his master.
Pomfrey, however, managed to get the light in order and working, and then,
he scarcely knew how, betook himself to bed in a state of high fever. He
turned from side to side racked by pain, with burning lips and pulses.
Strange fancies beset him; he had noticed when he lit his light that a
strange sail was looming off the estuary—a place where no sail had
ever been seen or should be—and was relieved that the lighting of
the tower might show the reckless or ignorant mariner his real bearings
for the “Gate.” At times he had heard voices above the familiar song of
the surf, and tried to rise from his bed, but could not. Sometimes these
voices were strange, outlandish, dissonant, in his own language, yet only
partly intelligible; but through them always rang a single voice, musical,
familiar, yet of a tongue not his own—hers! And then, out of his
delirium—for such it proved afterwards to be—came a strange
vision. He thought that he had just lit the light when, from some strange
and unaccountable reason, it suddenly became dim and defied all his
efforts to revive it. To add to his discomfiture, he could see quite
plainly through the lantern a strange-looking vessel standing in from the
sea. She was so clearly out of her course for the Gate that he knew she
had not seen the light, and his limbs trembled with shame and terror as he
tried in vain to rekindle the dying light. Yet to his surprise the strange
ship kept steadily on, passing the dangerous reef of rocks, until she was
actually in the waters of the bay. But stranger than all, swimming beneath
her bows was the golden head and laughing face of the Indian girl, even as
he had seen it the day before. A strange revulsion of feeling overtook
him. Believing that she was luring the ship to its destruction, he ran out
on the beach and strove to hail the vessel and warn it of its impending
doom. But he could not speak—no sound came from his lips. And now
his attention was absorbed by the ship itself. High-bowed and pooped, and
curved like the crescent moon, it was the strangest craft that he had ever
seen. Even as he gazed it glided on nearer and nearer, and at last beached
itself noiselessly on the sands before his own feet. A score of figures as
bizarre and outlandish as the ship itself now thronged its high forecastle—really
a castle in shape and warlike purpose—and leaped from its ports. The
common seamen were nearly naked to the waist; the officers looked more
like soldiers than sailors. What struck him more strangely was that they
were one and all seemingly unconscious of the existence of the lighthouse,
sauntering up and down carelessly, as if on some uninhabited strand, and
even talking—so far as he could understand their old bookish dialect—as
if in some hitherto undiscovered land. Their ignorance of the geography of
the whole coast, and even of the sea from which they came, actually
aroused his critical indignation; their coarse and stupid allusions to the
fair Indian swimmer as the “mermaid” that they had seen upon their bow
made him more furious still. Yet he was helpless to express his
contemptuous anger, or even make them conscious of his presence. Then an
interval of incoherency and utter blankness followed. When he again took
up the thread of his fancy the ship seemed to be lying on her beam ends on
the sand; the strange arrangement of her upper deck and top-hamper, more
like a dwelling than any ship he had ever seen, was fully exposed to view,
while the seamen seemed to be at work with the rudest contrivances,
calking and scraping her barnacled sides. He saw that phantom crew, when
not working, at wassail and festivity; heard the shouts of drunken
roisterers; saw the placing of a guard around some of the most
uncontrollable, and later detected the stealthy escape of half a dozen
sailors inland, amidst the fruitless volley fired upon them from obsolete
blunderbusses. Then his strange vision transported him inland, where he
saw these seamen following some Indian women. Suddenly one of them turned
and ran frenziedly towards him as if seeking succor, closely pursued by
one of the sailors. Pomfrey strove to reach her, struggled violently with
the fearful apathy that seemed to hold his limbs, and then, as she uttered
at last a little musical cry, burst his bonds and—awoke!

As consciousness slowly struggled back to him, he could see the bare
wooden-like walls of his sleeping-room, the locker, the one window bright
with sunlight, the open door of the tank-room, and the little staircase to
the tower. There was a strange smoky and herb-like smell in the room. He
made an effort to rise, but as he did so a small sunburnt hand was laid
gently yet restrainingly upon his shoulder, and he heard the same musical
cry as before, but this time modulated to a girlish laugh. He raised his
head faintly. Half squatting, half kneeling by his bed was the
yellow-haired stranger.

With the recollection of his vision still perplexing him, he said in a
weak voice, “Who are you?”

Her blue eyes met his own with quick intelligence and no trace of her
former timidity. A soft, caressing light had taken its place. Pointing
with her finger to her breast in a childlike gesture, she said, “Me—Olooya.”

“Olooya!” He remembered suddenly that Jim had always used that word in
speaking of her, but until then he had always thought it was some Indian
term for her distinct class.

“Olooya,” he repeated. Then, with difficulty attempting to use her own
tongue, he asked, “When did you come here?”

“Last night,” she answered in the same tongue. “There was no witch-fire
there,” she continued, pointing to the tower; “when it came not, Olooya
came! Olooya found white chief sick and alone. White chief could not get
up! Olooya lit witch-fire for him.”

“You?” he repeated in astonishment. “I lit it myself.”

She looked at him pityingly, as if still recognizing his delirium, and
shook her head. “White chief was sick—how can know? Olooya made
witch-fire.”

He cast a hurried glance at his watch hanging on the wall beside him. It
had RUN DOWN, although he had wound it the last thing before going to bed.
He had evidently been lying there helpless beyond the twenty-four hours!

He groaned and turned to rise, but she gently forced him down again, and
gave him some herbal infusion, in which he recognized the taste of the
Yerba Buena vine which grew by the river. Then she made him comprehend in
her own tongue that Jim had been decoyed, while drunk, aboard a certain
schooner lying off the shore at a spot where she had seen some men digging
in the sands. She had not gone there, for she was afraid of the bad men,
and a slight return of her former terror came into her changeful eyes. She
knew how to light the witch-light; she reminded him she had been in the
tower before.

“You have saved my light, and perhaps my life,” he said weakly, taking her
hand.

Possibly she did not understand him, for her only answer was a vague
smile. But the next instant she started up, listening intently, and then
with a frightened cry drew away her hand and suddenly dashed out of the
building. In the midst of his amazement the door was darkened by a figure—a
stranger dressed like an ordinary miner. Pausing a moment to look after
the flying Olooya, the man turned and glanced around the room, and then
with a coarse, familiar smile approached Pomfrey.

“Hope I ain’t disturbin’ ye, but I allowed I’d just be neighborly and drop
in—seein’ as this is gov’nment property, and me and my pardners, as
American citizens and tax-payers, helps to support it. We’re coastin’ from
Trinidad down here and prospectin’ along the beach for gold in the sand.
Ye seem to hev a mighty soft berth of it here—nothing to do—and
lots of purty half-breeds hangin’ round!”

The man’s effrontery was too much for Pomfrey’s self-control, weakened by
illness. “It IS government property,” he answered hotly, “and you have no
more right to intrude upon it than you have to decoy away my servant, a
government employee, during my illness, and jeopardize that property.”

The unexpectedness of this attack, and the sudden revelation of the fact
of Pomfrey’s illness in his flushed face and hollow voice apparently
frightened and confused the stranger. He stammered a surly excuse, backed
out of the doorway, and disappeared. An hour later Jim appeared,
crestfallen, remorseful, and extravagantly penitent. Pomfrey was too weak
for reproaches or inquiry, and he was thinking only of Olooya.

She did not return. His recovery in that keen air, aided, as he sometimes
thought, by the herbs she had given him, was almost as rapid as his
illness. The miners did not again intrude upon the lighthouse nor trouble
his seclusion. When he was able to sun himself on the sands, he could see
them in the distance at work on the beach. He reflected that she would not
come back while they were there, and was reconciled. But one morning Jim
appeared, awkward and embarrassed, leading another Indian, whom he
introduced as Olooya’s brother. Pomfrey’s suspicions were aroused. Except
that the stranger had something of the girl’s superiority of manner, there
was no likeness whatever to his fair-haired acquaintance. But a fury of
indignation was added to his suspicions when he learned the amazing
purport of their visit. It was nothing less than an offer from the alleged
brother to SELL his sister to Pomfrey for forty dollars and a jug of
whiskey! Unfortunately, Pomfrey’s temper once more got the better of his
judgment. With a scathing exposition of the laws under which the Indian
and white man equally lived, and the legal punishment of kidnaping, he
swept what he believed was the impostor from his presence. He was scarcely
alone again before he remembered that his imprudence might affect the
girl’s future access to him, but it was too late now.

Still he clung to the belief that he should see her when the prospectors
had departed, and he hailed with delight the breaking up of the camp near
the “sweat-house” and the disappearance of the schooner. It seemed that
their gold-seeking was unsuccessful; but Pomfrey was struck, on visiting
the locality, to find that in their excavations in the sand at the estuary
they had uncovered the decaying timbers of a ship’s small boat of some
ancient and obsolete construction. This made him think of his strange
dream, with a vague sense of warning which he could not shake off, and on
his return to the lighthouse he took from his shelves a copy of the old
voyages to see how far his fancy had been affected by his reading. In the
account of Drake’s visit to the coast he found a footnote which he had
overlooked before, and which ran as follows: “The Admiral seems to have
lost several of his crew by desertion, who were supposed to have perished
miserably by starvation in the inhospitable interior or by the hands of
savages. But later voyagers have suggested that the deserters married
Indian wives, and there is a legend that a hundred years later a singular
race of half-breeds, bearing unmistakable Anglo-Saxon characteristics, was
found in that locality.” Pomfrey fell into a reverie of strange hypotheses
and fancies. He resolved that, when he again saw Olooya, he would question
her; her terror of these men might be simply racial or some hereditary
transmission.

But his intention was never fulfilled. For when days and weeks had
elapsed, and he had vainly haunted the river estuary and the rocky reef
before the lighthouse without a sign of her, he overcame his pride
sufficiently to question Jim. The man looked at him with dull
astonishment.

“Olooya gone,” he said.

“Gone!—where?”

The Indian made a gesture to seaward which seemed to encompass the whole
Pacific.

UNDER THE EAVES

The assistant editor of the San Francisco “Daily Informer” was going home.
So much of his time was spent in the office of the “Informer” that no one
ever cared to know where he passed those six hours of sleep which
presumably suggested a domicile. His business appointments outside the
office were generally kept at the restaurant where he breakfasted and
dined, or of evenings in the lobbies of theatres or the anterooms of
public meetings. Yet he had a home and an interval of seclusion of which
he was jealously mindful, and it was to this he was going to-night at his
usual hour.

His room was in a new building on one of the larger and busier
thoroughfares. The lower floor was occupied by a bank, but as it was
closed before he came home, and not yet opened when he left, it did not
disturb his domestic sensibilities. The same may be said of the next
floor, which was devoted to stockbrokers’ and companies offices, and was
equally tomb-like and silent when he passed; the floor above that was a
desert of empty rooms, which echoed to his footsteps night and morning,
with here and there an oasis in the green sign of a mining secretary’s
office, with, however, the desolating announcement that it would only be
“open for transfers from two to four on Saturdays.” The top floor had been
frankly abandoned in an unfinished state by the builder, whose ambition
had “o’erleaped itself” in that sanguine era of the city’s growth. There
was a smell of plaster and the first coat of paint about it still, but the
whole front of the building was occupied by a long room with odd
“bull’s-eye” windows looking out through the heavy ornamentations of the
cornice over the adjacent roofs.

It had been originally intended for a club-room, but after the ill fortune
which attended the letting of the floor below, and possibly because the
earthquake-fearing San Franciscans had their doubts of successful hilarity
at the top of so tall a building, it remained unfinished, with the two
smaller rooms at its side. Its incomplete and lonely grandeur had once
struck the editor during a visit of inspection, and the landlord, whom he
knew, had offered to make it habitable for him at a nominal rent. It had a
lavatory with a marble basin and a tap of cold water. The offer was a
novel one, but he accepted it, and fitted up the apartment with some cheap
second-hand furniture, quite inconsistent with the carved mantels and
decorations, and made a fair sitting-room and bedroom of it. Here, on a
Sunday, when its stillness was intensified, and even a passing footstep on
the pavement fifty feet below was quite startling, he would sit and work
by one of the quaint open windows. In the rainy season, through the filmed
panes he sometimes caught a glimpse of the distant, white-capped bay, but
never of the street below him.

The lights were out, but, groping his way up to the first landing, he took
from a cup-boarded niche in the wall his candlestick and matches and
continued the ascent to his room. The humble candlelight flickered on the
ostentatious gold letters displayed on the ground-glass doors of opulent
companies which he knew were famous, and rooms where millionaires met in
secret conclave, but the contrast awakened only his sense of humor. Yet he
was always relieved after he had reached his own floor. Possibly its
incompleteness and inchoate condition made it seem less lonely than the
desolation of the finished and furnished rooms below, and it was only this
recollection of past human occupancy that was depressing.

He opened his door, lit the solitary gas jet that only half illuminated
the long room, and, it being already past midnight, began to undress
himself. This process presently brought him to that corner of his room
where his bed stood, when he suddenly stopped, and his sleepy yawn changed
to a gape of surprise. For, lying in the bed, its head upon the pillow,
and its rigid arms accurately stretched down over the turned-back sheet,
was a child’s doll! It was a small doll—a banged and battered doll,
that had seen service, but it had evidently been “tucked in” with maternal
tenderness, and lay there with its staring eyes turned to the ceiling, the
very genius of insomnia!

His first start of surprise was followed by a natural resentment of what
might have been an impertinent intrusion on his privacy by some
practical-joking adult, for he knew there was no child in the house.

His room was kept in order by the wife of the night watchman employed by
the bank, and no one else had a right of access to it. But the woman might
have brought a child there and not noticed its disposal of its plaything.
He smiled. It might have been worse! It might have been a real baby!

The idea tickled him with a promise of future “copy”—of a story with
farcical complications, or even a dramatic ending, in which the baby,
adopted by him, should turn out to be somebody’s stolen offspring. He
lifted the little image that had suggested these fancies, carefully laid
it on his table, went to bed, and presently forgot it all in slumber.

In the morning his good-humor and interest in it revived to the extent of
writing on a slip of paper, “Good-morning! Thank you—I’ve slept very
well,” putting the slip in the doll’s jointed arms, and leaving it in a
sitting posture outside his door when he left his room. When he returned
late at night it was gone.

But it so chanced that, a few days later, owing to press of work on the
“Informer,” he was obliged to forego his usual Sunday holiday out of town,
and that morning found him, while the bells were ringing for church, in
his room with a pile of manuscript and proof before him. For these were
troublous days in San Francisco; the great Vigilance Committee of ‘56 was
in session, and the offices of the daily papers were thronged with eager
seekers of news. Such affairs, indeed, were not in the functions of the
assistant editor, nor exactly to his taste; he was neither a partisan of
the so-called Law and Order Party, nor yet an enthusiastic admirer of the
citizen Revolutionists known as the Vigilance Committee, both extremes
being incompatible with his habits of thought. Consequently he was not
displeased at this opportunity of doing his work away from the office and
the “heady talk” of controversy.

He worked on until the bells ceased and a more than Sabbath stillness fell
upon the streets. So quiet was it that once or twice the conversation of
passing pedestrians floated up and into his window, as of voices at his
elbow.

Presently he heard the sound of a child’s voice singing in subdued tone,
as if fearful of being overheard. This time he laid aside his pen—it
certainly was no delusion! The sound did not come from the open window,
but from some space on a level with his room. Yet there was no contiguous
building as high.

He rose and tried to open his door softly, but it creaked, and the singing
instantly ceased. There was nothing before him but the bare, empty hall,
with its lathed and plastered partitions, and the two smaller rooms,
unfinished like his own, on either side of him. Their doors were shut; the
one at his right hand was locked, the other yielded to his touch.

For the first moment he saw only the bare walls of the apparently empty
room. But a second glance showed him two children—a boy of seven and
a girl of five—sitting on the floor, which was further littered by a
mattress, pillow, and blanket. There was a cheap tray on one of the trunks
containing two soiled plates and cups and fragments of a meal. But there
was neither a chair nor table nor any other article of furniture in the
room. Yet he was struck by the fact that, in spite of this poverty of
surrounding, the children were decently dressed, and the few scattered
pieces of luggage in quality bespoke a superior condition.

The children met his astonished stare with an equal wonder and, he
fancied, some little fright. The boy’s lips trembled a little as he said
apologetically—

“I told Jinny not to sing. But she didn’t make MUCH noise.”

“Mamma said I could play with my dolly. But I fordot and singed,” said the
little girl penitently.

“Where’s your mamma?” asked the young man. The fancy of their being near
relatives of the night watchman had vanished at the sound of their voices.

“Dorn out,” said the girl.

“When did she go out?”

“Last night.”

“Were you all alone here last night?”

“Yes!”

Perhaps they saw the look of indignation and pity in the editor’s face,
for the boy said quickly—

“She don’t go out EVERY night; last night she went to”—

He stopped suddenly, and both children looked at each other with a half
laugh and half cry, and then repeated in hopeless unison, “She’s dorn
out.”

“When is she coming back again?”

“To-night. But we won’t make any more noise.”

“Who brings you your food?” continued the editor, looking at the tray.

“Woberts.”

Evidently Roberts, the night watchman! The editor felt relieved; here was
a clue to some explanation. He instantly sat down on the floor between
them.

“So that was the dolly that slept in my bed,” he said gayly, taking it up.

God gives helplessness a wonderful intuition of its friends. The children
looked up at the face of their grown-up companion, giggled, and then burst
into a shrill fit of laughter. He felt that it was the first one they had
really indulged in for many days. Nevertheless he said, “Hush!”
confidentially; why he scarcely knew, except to intimate to them that he
had taken in their situation thoroughly. “Make no noise,” he added softly,
“and come into my big room.”

They hung back, however, with frightened yet longing eyes. “Mamma said we
mussent do out of this room,” said the girl.

The logic sufficed them, poor as it was. Their hands slid quite naturally
into his. But at the door he stopped, and motioning to the locked door of
the other room, asked:—

“And is that mamma’s room, too?”

Their little hands slipped from his and they were silent. Presently the
boy, as if acted upon by some occult influence of the girl, said in a half
whisper, “Yes.”

The editor did not question further, but led them into his room. Here they
lost the slight restraint they had shown, and began, child fashion, to
become questioners themselves.

In a few moments they were in possession of his name, his business, the
kind of restaurant he frequented, where he went when he left his room all
day, the meaning of those funny slips of paper, and the written
manuscripts, and why he was so quiet. But any attempt of his to retaliate
by counter questions was met by a sudden reserve so unchildlike and
painful to him—as it was evidently to themselves—that he
desisted, wisely postponing his inquiries until he could meet Roberts.

He was glad when they fell to playing games with each other quite
naturally, yet not entirely forgetting his propinquity, as their
occasional furtive glances at his movements showed him. He, too, became
presently absorbed in his work, until it was finished and it was time for
him to take it to the office of the “Informer.” The wild idea seized him
of also taking the children afterwards for a holiday to the Mission
Dolores, but he prudently remembered that even this negligent mother of
theirs might have some rights over her offspring that he was bound to
respect.

He took leave of them gayly, suggesting that the doll be replaced in his
bed while he was away, and even assisted in “tucking it up.” But during
the afternoon the recollection of these lonely playfellows in the deserted
house obtruded itself upon his work and the talk of his companions. Sunday
night was his busiest night, and he could not, therefore, hope to get away
in time to assure himself of their mother’s return.

It was nearly two in the morning when he returned to his room. He paused
for a moment on the threshold to listen for any sound from the adjoining
room. But all was hushed.

His intention of speaking to the night watchman was, however, anticipated
the next morning by that guardian himself. A tap upon his door while he
was dressing caused him to open it somewhat hurriedly in the hope of
finding one of the children there, but he met only the embarrassed face of
Roberts. Inviting him into the room, the editor continued dressing.
Carefully closing the door behind him, the man began, with evident
hesitation,—

“I oughter hev told ye suthin’ afore, Mr. Breeze; but I kalkilated, so to
speak, that you wouldn’t be bothered one way or another, and so ye hadn’t
any call to know that there was folks here”—

“Oh, I see,” interrupted Breeze cheerfully; “you’re speaking of the family
next door—the landlord’s new tenants.”

“They ain’t exactly THAT,” said Roberts, still with embarrassment. “The
fact is—ye see—the thing points THIS way: they ain’t no right
to be here, and it’s as much as my place is worth if it leaks out that
they are.”

Mr. Breeze suspended his collar-buttoning, and stared at Roberts.

“You see, sir, they’re mighty poor, and they’ve nowhere else to go—and
I reckoned to take ‘em in here for a spell and say nothing about it.”

“Oh, no; don’t!” said Roberts in alarm; “he wouldn’t like it. You see, Mr.
Breeze, it’s just this way: the mother, she’s a born lady, and did my old
woman a good turn in old times when the family was rich; but now she’s
obliged—just to support herself, you know—to take up with what
she gets, and she acts in the bally in the theatre, you see, and hez to
come in late o’ nights. In them cheap boarding-houses, you know, the folks
looks down upon her for that, and won’t hev her, and in the cheap hotels
the men are—you know—a darned sight wuss, and that’s how I
took her and her kids in here, where no one knows ‘em.”

“I see,” nodded the editor sympathetically; “and very good it was of you,
my man.”

Roberts looked still more confused, and stammered with a forced laugh,
“And—so—I’m just keeping her on here, unbeknownst, until her
husband gets”—He stopped suddenly.

“So she has a husband living, then?” said Breeze in surprise.

“In the mines, yes—in the mines!” repeated Roberts with a monotonous
deliberation quite distinct from his previous hesitation, “and she’s only
waitin’ until he gets money enough—to—to take her away.” He
stopped and breathed hard.

“But couldn’t you—couldn’t WE—get her some more furniture?
There’s nothing in that room, you know, not a chair or table; and unless
the other room is better furnished”—

“Eh? Oh, yes!” said Roberts quickly, yet still with a certain
embarrassment; “of course THAT’S better furnished, and she’s quite
satisfied, and so are the kids, with anything. And now, Mr. Breeze, I
reckon you’ll say nothin’ o’ this, and you’ll never go back on me?”

“My dear Mr. Roberts,” said the editor gravely, “from this moment I am not
only blind, but deaf to the fact that ANYBODY occupies this floor but
myself.”

“I knew you was white all through, Mr. Breeze,” said the night watchman,
grasping the young man’s hand with a grip of iron, “and I telled my wife
so. I sez, ‘Jest you let me tell him EVERYTHIN’,’ but she”—He
stopped again and became confused.

“And she was quite right, I dare say,” said Breeze, with a laugh; “and I
do not want to know anything. And that poor woman must never know that I
ever knew anything, either. But you may tell your wife that when the
mother is away she can bring the little ones in here whenever she likes.”

“Thank ye—thank ye, sir!—and I’ll just run down and tell the
old woman now, and won’t intrude upon your dressin’ any longer.”

He grasped Breeze’s hand again, went out and closed the door behind him.
It might have been the editor’s fancy, but he thought there was a certain
interval of silence outside the door before the night watchman’s heavy
tread was heard along the hall again.

For several evenings after this Mr. Breeze paid some attention to the
ballet in his usual round of the theatres. Although he had never seen his
fair neighbor, he had a vague idea that he might recognize her through
some likeness to her children. But in vain. In the opulent charms of
certain nymphs, and in the angular austerities of others, he failed
equally to discern any of those refinements which might have distinguished
the “born lady” of Roberts’s story, or which he himself had seen in her
children.

These he did not meet again during the week, as his duties kept him late
at the office; but from certain signs in his room he knew that Mrs.
Roberts had availed herself of his invitation to bring them in with her,
and he regularly found “Jinny’s” doll tucked up in his bed at night, and
he as regularly disposed of it outside his door in the morning, with a few
sweets, like an offering, tucked under its rigid arms.

But another circumstance touched him more delicately; his room was
arranged with greater care than before, and with an occasional exhibition
of taste that certainly had not distinguished Mrs. Roberts’s previous
ministrations. One evening on his return he found a small bouquet of
inexpensive flowers in a glass on his writing-table. He loved flowers too
well not to detect that they were quite fresh, and could have been put
there only an hour or two before he arrived.

The next evening was Saturday, and, as he usually left the office earlier
on that day, it occurred to him, as he walked home, that it was about the
time his fair neighbor would be leaving the theatre, and that it was
possible he might meet her.

At the front door, however, he found Roberts, who returned his greeting
with a certain awkwardness which struck him as singular. When he reached
the niche on the landing he found his candle was gone, but he proceeded
on, groping his way up the stairs, with an odd conviction that both these
incidents pointed to the fact that the woman had just returned or was
expected.

He had also a strange feeling—which may have been owing to the
darkness—that some one was hidden on the landing or on the stairs
where he would pass. This was further accented by a faint odor of
patchouli, as, with his hand on the rail, he turned the corner of the
third landing, and he was convinced that if he had put out his other hand
it would have come in contact with his mysterious neighbor. But a certain
instinct of respect for her secret, which she was even now guarding in the
darkness, withheld him, and he passed on quickly to his own floor.

Here it was lighter; the moon shot a beam of silver across the passage
from an unshuttered window as he passed. He reached his room door,
entered, but instead of lighting the gas and shutting the door, stood with
it half open, listening in the darkness.

His suspicions were verified; there was a slight rustling noise, and a
figure which had evidently followed him appeared at the end of the
passage. It was that of a woman habited in a grayish dress and cloak of
the same color; but as she passed across the band of moonlight he had a
distinct view of her anxious, worried face. It was a face no longer young;
it was worn with illness, but still replete with a delicacy and faded
beauty so inconsistent with her avowed profession that he felt a sudden
pang of pain and doubt. The next moment she had vanished in her room,
leaving the same faint perfume behind her. He closed his door softly, lit
the gas, and sat down in a state of perplexity. That swift glimpse of her
face and figure had made her story improbable to the point of absurdity,
or possibly to the extreme of pathos!

It seemed incredible that a woman of that quality should be forced to
accept a vocation at once so low, so distasteful, and so unremunerative.
With her evident antecedents, had she no friends but this common Western
night watchman of a bank? Had Roberts deceived him? Was his whole story a
fabrication, and was there some complicity between the two? What was it?
He knit his brows.

Mr. Breeze had that overpowering knowledge of the world which only comes
with the experience of twenty-five, and to this he superadded the active
imagination of a newspaper man. A plot to rob the bank? These mysterious
absences, that luggage which he doubted not was empty and intended for
spoil! But why encumber herself with the two children? Here his common
sense and instinct of the ludicrous returned and he smiled.

But he could not believe in the ballet dancer! He wondered, indeed, how
any manager could have accepted the grim satire of that pale, worried face
among the fairies, that sad refinement amid their vacant smiles and rouged
checks. And then, growing sad again, he comforted himself with the
reflection that at least the children were not alone that night, and so
went to sleep.

For some days he had no further meeting with his neighbors. The disturbed
state of the city—for the Vigilance Committee were still in session—obliged
the daily press to issue “extras,” and his work at the office increased.

It was not until Sunday again that he was able to be at home. Needless to
say that his solitary little companions were duly installed there, while
he sat at work with his proofs on the table before him.

The stillness of the empty house was only broken by the habitually subdued
voices of the children at their play, when suddenly the harsh stroke of a
distant bell came through the open window. But it was no Sabbath bell, and
Mr. Breeze knew it. It was the tocsin of the Vigilance Committee,
summoning the members to assemble at their quarters for a capture, a
trial, or an execution of some wrongdoer. To him it was equally a summons
to the office—to distasteful news and excitement.

He threw his proofs aside in disgust, laid down his pen, seized his hat,
and paused a moment to look round for his playmates. But they were gone!
He went into the hall, looked into the open door of their room, but they
were not there. He tried the door of the second room, but it was locked.

Satisfied that they had stolen downstairs in their eagerness to know what
the bell meant, he hurried down also, met Roberts in the passage,—a
singularly unusual circumstance at that hour,—called to him to look
after the runaways, and hurried to his office.

Here he found the staff collected, excitedly discussing the news. One of
the Vigilance Committee prisoners, a notorious bully and ruffian, detained
as a criminal and a witness, had committed suicide in his cell.
Fortunately this was all reportorial work, and the services of Mr. Breeze
were not required. He hurried back, relieved, to his room.

When he reached his landing, breathlessly, he heard the same quick rustle
he had heard that memorable evening, and was quite satisfied that he saw a
figure glide swiftly out of the open door of his room. It was no doubt his
neighbor, who had been seeking her children, and as he heard their voices
as he passed, his uneasiness and suspicions were removed.

He sat down again to his scattered papers and proofs, finished his work,
and took it to the office on his way to dinner. He returned early, in the
hope that he might meet his neighbor again, and had quite settled his mind
that he was justified in offering a civil “Good-evening” to her, in spite
of his previous respectful ignoring of her presence. She must certainly
have become aware by this time of his attention to her children and
consideration for herself, and could not mistake his motives. But he was
disappointed, although he came up softly; he found the floor in darkness
and silence on his return, and he had to be content with lighting his gas
and settling down to work again.

A near church clock had struck ten when he was startled by the sound of an
unfamiliar and uncertain step in the hall, followed by a tap at his door.
Breeze jumped to his feet, and was astonished to find Dick, the “printer’s
devil,” standing on the threshold with a roll of proofs in his hand.

“How did you get here?” he asked testily.

“They told me at the restaurant they reckoned you lived yere, and the
night watchman at the door headed me straight up. When he knew whar I kem
from he wanted to know what the news was, but I told him he’d better buy
an extra and see.”

“Well, what did you come for?” said the editor impatiently.

“The foreman said it was important, and he wanted to know afore he went to
press ef this yer correction was YOURS?”

He went to the table, unrolled the proofs, and, taking out the slip,
pointed to a marked paragraph. “The foreman says the reporter who brought
the news allows he got it straight first-hand! But ef you’ve corrected it,
he reckons you know best.”

Breeze saw at a glance that the paragraph alluded to was not of his own
writing, but one of several news items furnished by reporters. These had
been “set up” in the same “galley,” and consequently appeared in the same
proof-slip. He was about to say curtly that neither the matter nor the
correction was his, when something odd in the correction of the item
struck him. It read as follows:—

“It appears that the notorious ‘Jim Bodine,’ who is in hiding and badly
wanted by the Vigilance Committee, has been tempted lately into a renewal
of his old recklessness. He was seen in Sacramento Street the other night
by two separate witnesses, one of whom followed him, but he escaped in
some friendly doorway.”

The words “in Sacramento Street” were stricken out and replaced by the
correction “on the Saucelito shore,” and the words “friendly doorway” were
changed to “friendly dinghy.” The correction was not his, nor the
handwriting, which was further disguised by being an imitation of print. A
strange idea seized him.

“Has any one seen these proofs since I left them at the office?”

“No, only the foreman, sir.”

He remembered that he had left the proofs lying openly on his table when
he was called to the office at the stroke of the alarm bell; he remembered
the figure he saw gliding from his room on his return. She had been there
alone with the proofs; she only could have tampered with them.

The evident object of the correction was to direct the public attention
from Sacramento Street to Saucelito, as the probable whereabouts of this
“Jimmy Bodine.” The street below was Sacramento Street, the “friendly
doorway” might have been their own.

That she had some knowledge of this Bodine was not more improbable than
the ballet story. Her strange absences, the mystery surrounding her, all
seemed to testify that she had some connection—perhaps only an
innocent one—with these desperate people whom the Vigilance
Committee were hunting down. Her attempt to save the man was, after all,
no more illegal than their attempt to capture him. True, she might have
trusted him, Breeze, without this tampering with his papers; yet perhaps
she thought he was certain to discover it—and it was only a silent
appeal to his mercy. The corrections were ingenious and natural—it
was the act of an intelligent, quick-witted woman.

Mr. Breeze was prompt in acting upon his intuition, whether right or
wrong. He took up his pen, wrote on the margin of the proof, “Print as
corrected,” said to the boy carelessly, “The corrections are all right,”
and dismissed him quickly.

The corrected paragraph which appeared in the “Informer” the next morning
seemed to attract little public attention, the greater excitement being
the suicide of the imprisoned bully and the effect it might have upon the
prosecution of other suspected parties, against whom the dead man had been
expected to bear witness.

Mr. Breeze was unable to obtain any information regarding the desperado
Bodine’s associates and relations; his correction of the paragraph had
made the other members of the staff believe he had secret and superior
information regarding the fugitive, and he thus was estopped from asking
questions. But he felt himself justified now in demanding fuller
information from Roberts at the earliest opportunity.

For this purpose he came home earlier that night, hoping to find the night
watchman still on his first beat in the lower halls. But he was
disappointed. He was amazed, however, on reaching his own landing, to find
the passage piled with new luggage, some of that ruder type of rolled
blanket and knapsack known as a “miner’s kit.” He was still more surprised
to hear men’s voices and the sound of laughter proceeding from the room
that was always locked. A sudden sense of uneasiness and disgust, he knew
not why, came over him.

He passed quickly into his room, shut the door sharply, and lit the gas.
But he presently heard the door of the locked room open, a man’s voice,
slightly elevated by liquor and opposition, saying, “I know what’s due
from one gen’leman to ‘nother”—a querulous, objecting voice saying,
“Hole on! not now,” and a fainter feminine protest, all of which were
followed by a rap on his door.

Breeze opened it to two strangers, one of whom lurched forward unsteadily
with outstretched hand. He had a handsome face and figure, and a certain
consciousness of it even in the abandon of liquor; he had an aggressive
treacherousness of eye which his potations had not subdued. He grasped
Breeze’s hand tightly, but dropped it the next moment perfunctorily as he
glanced round the room.

“I told them I was bound to come in,” he said, without looking at Breeze,
“and say ‘Howdy!’ to the man that’s bin a pal to my women folks and the
kids—and acted white all through! I said to Mame, ‘I reckon HE knows
who I am, and that I kin be high-toned to them that’s high-toned; kin
return shake for shake and shot for shot!’ Aye! that’s me! So I was bound
to come in like a gen’leman, sir, and here I am!”

He threw himself in an unproffered chair and stared at Breeze.

“I’m afraid,” said Breeze dryly, “that, nevertheless, I never knew who you
were, and that even now I am ignorant whom I am addressing.”

“That’s just it,” said the second man, with a querulous protest, which did
not, however, conceal his admiring vassalage to his friend; “that’s what
I’m allus telling Jim. ‘Jim,’ I says, ‘how is folks to know you’re the man
that shot Kernel Baxter, and dropped three o’ them Mariposa Vigilants?
They didn’t see you do it! They just look at your fancy style and them
mustaches of yours, and allow ye might be death on the girls, but they
don’t know ye! An’ this man yere—he’s a scribe in them papers—writes
what the boss editor tells him, and lives up yere on the roof, ‘longside
yer wife and the children—what’s he knowin’ about YOU?’ Jim’s all
right enough,” he continued, in easy confidence to Breeze, “but he’s too
fresh ‘bout himself.”

Mr. James Bodine accepted this tribute and criticism of his henchman with
a complacent laugh, which was not, however, without a certain contempt for
the speaker and the man spoken to. His bold, selfish eyes wandered round
the room as if in search of some other amusement than his companions
offered.

“I reckon this is the room which that hound of a landlord, Rakes, allowed
he’d fix up for our poker club—the club that Dan Simmons and me got
up, with a few other sports. It was to be a slap-up affair, right under
the roof, where there was no chance of the police raiding us. But the cur
weakened when the Vigilants started out to make war on any game a
gen’leman might hev that wasn’t in their gummy-bag, salt pork trade. Well,
it’s gettin’ a long time between drinks, gen’lemen, ain’t it?” He looked
round him significantly.

Only the thought of the woman and her children in the next room, and the
shame that he believed she was enduring, enabled Breeze to keep his temper
or even a show of civility.

“I’m afraid,” he said quietly, “that you’ll find very little here to
remind you of the club—not even the whiskey; for I use the room only
as a bedroom, and as I am a workingman, and come in late and go out early,
I have never found it available for hospitality, even to my intimate
friends. I am very glad, however, that the little leisure I have had in it
has enabled me to make the floor less lonely for your children.”

Mr. Bodine got up with an affected yawn, turned an embarrassed yet
darkening eye on Breeze, and lunged unsteadily to the door. “And as I only
happened in to do the reg’lar thing between high-toned gen’lemen, I reckon
we kin say ‘Quits.’” He gave a coarse laugh, said “So long,” nodded,
stumbled into the passage, and thence into the other room.

His companion watched him pass out with a relieved yet protecting air, and
then, closing the door softly, drew nearer to Breeze, and said in husky
confidence,—

“Ye ain’t seein’ him at his best, mister! He’s bin drinkin’ too much, and
this yer news has upset him.”

“What news?” asked Breeze.

“This yer suicide o’ Irish Jack!”

“Was he his friend?”

“Friend?” ejaculated the man, horrified at the mere suggestion. “Not much!
Why, Irish Jack was the only man that could hev hung Jim! Now he’s dead,
in course the Vigilants ain’t got no proof agin Jim. Jim wants to face it
out now an’ stay here, but his wife and me don’t see it noways! So we are
taking advantage o’ the lull agin him to get him off down the coast this
very night. That’s why he’s been off his head drinkin’. Ye see, when a man
has been for weeks hidin’—part o’ the time in that room and part o’
the time on the wharf, where them Vigilants has been watchin’ every ship
that left in order to ketch him, he’s inclined to celebrate his chance o’
getting away”—

“Part of the time in that room?” interrupted Breeze quickly.

“Sartin! Don’t ye see? He allus kem in as you went out—sabe!—and
got away before you kem back, his wife all the time just a-hoverin’
between the two places, and keeping watch for him. It was killin’ to her,
you see, for she wasn’t brought up to it, whiles Jim didn’t keer—had
two revolvers and kalkilated to kill a dozen Vigilants afore he dropped.
But that’s over now, and when I’ve got him safe on that ‘plunger’ down at
the wharf to-night, and put him aboard the schooner that’s lying off the
Heads, he’s all right agin.”

“And Roberts knew all this and was one of his friends?” asked Breeze.

“Roberts knew it, and Roberts’s wife used to be a kind of servant to Jim’s
wife in the South, when she was a girl, but I don’t know ez Roberts is his
FRIEND!”

“He certainly has shown himself one,” said Breeze.

“Ye-e-s,” said the stranger meditatively, “ye-e-s.” He stopped, opened the
door softly, and peeped out, and then closed it again softly. “It’s
sing’lar, Mr. Breeze,” he went on in a sudden yet embarrassed burst of
confidence, “that Jim thar—a man thet can shoot straight, and hez
frequent; a man thet knows every skin game goin’—that THET man Jim,”
very slowly, “hezn’t really—got—any friends—‘cept me—and
his wife.”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Breeze dryly.

“Sure! Why, you yourself didn’t cotton to him—I could see THET.”

Mr. Breeze felt himself redden slightly, and looked curiously at the man.
This vulgar parasite, whom he had set down as a worshiper of sham heroes,
undoubtedly did not look like an associate of Bodine’s, and had a certain
seriousness that demanded respect. As he looked closer into his wide,
round face, seamed with small-pox, he fancied he saw even in its fatuous
imbecility something of that haunting devotion he had seen on the refined
features of the wife. He said more gently,—

“But one friend like you would seem to be enough.”

“I ain’t what I uster be, Mr. Breeze,” said the man meditatively, “and
mebbe ye don’t know who I am. I’m Abe Shuckster, of Shuckster’s Ranch—one
of the biggest in Petalumy. I was a rich man until a year ago, when Jim
got inter trouble. What with mortgages and interest, payin’ up Jim’s
friends and buying off some ez was set agin him, thar ain’t much left, and
when I’ve settled that bill for the schooner lying off the Heads there I
reckon I’m about played out. But I’ve allus a shanty at Petalumy, and
mebbe when things is froze over and Jim gets back—you’ll come and
see him—for you ain’t seen him at his best.”

“I suppose his wife and children go with him?” said Breeze.

“No! He’s agin it, and wants them to come later. But that’s all right, for
you see she kin go back to their own house at the Mission, now that the
Vigilants are givin’ up shadderin’ it. So long, Mr. Breeze! We’re startin’
afore daylight. Sorry you didn’t see Jim in condition.”

He grasped Breeze’s hand warmly and slipped out of the door softly. For an
instant Mr. Breeze felt inclined to follow him into the room and make a
kinder adieu to the pair, but the reflection that he might embarrass the
wife, who, it would seem, had purposely avoided accompanying her husband
when he entered, withheld him. And for the last few minutes he had been
doubtful if he had any right to pose as her friend. Beside the devotion of
the man who had just left him, his own scant kindness to her children
seemed ridiculous.

He went to bed, but tossed uneasily until he fancied he heard stealthy
footsteps outside his door and in the passage. Even then he thought of
getting up, dressing, and going out to bid farewell to the fugitives. But
even while he was thinking of it he fell asleep and did not wake until the
sun was shining in at his windows.

He sprang to his feet, threw on his dressing-gown, and peered into the
passage. Everything was silent. He stepped outside—the light
streamed into the hall from the open doors and windows of both rooms—the
floor was empty; not a trace of the former occupants remained. He was
turning back when his eye fell upon the battered wooden doll set upright
against his doorjamb, holding stiffly in its jointed arms a bit of paper
folded like a note. Opening it, he found a few lines written in pencil.

God bless you for your kindness to us, and try to forgive me for touching
your papers. But I thought that you would detect it, know WHY I did it,
and then help us, as you did! Good-by!

MAMIE BODINE.

Mr. Breeze laid down the paper with a slight accession of color, as if its
purport had been ironical. How little had he done compared to the devotion
of this delicate woman or the sacrifices of that rough friend! How
deserted looked this nest under the eaves, which had so long borne its
burden of guilt, innocence, shame, and suffering! For many days afterwards
he avoided it except at night, and even then he often found himself lying
awake to listen to the lost voices of the children.

But one evening, a fortnight later, he came upon Roberts in the hall.
“Well,” said Breeze, with abrupt directness, “did he get away?”

Roberts started, uttered an oath which it is possible the Recording Angel
passed to his credit, and said, “Yes, HE got away all right!”

“Why, hasn’t his wife joined him?”

“No. Never, in this world, I reckon; and if anywhere in the next, I don’t
want to go there!” said Roberts furiously.

“Is he dead?”

“Dead? That kind don’t die!”

“What do you mean?”

Roberts’s lips writhed, and then, with a strong effort, he said with
deliberate distinctness, “I mean—that the hound went off with
another woman—that—was—in—that schooner, and left
that fool Shuckster adrift in the plunger.”

“And the wife and children?”

“Shuckster sold his shanty at Petaluma to pay their passage to the States.
Good-night!”

HOW REUBEN ALLEN “SAW LIFE” IN SAN FRANCISCO

The junior partner of the firm of Sparlow & Kane, “Druggists and
Apothecaries,” of San Francisco, was gazing meditatively out of the corner
of the window of their little shop in Dupont Street. He could see the
dimly lit perspective of the narrow thoroughfare fade off into the level
sand wastes of Market Street on the one side, and plunge into the
half-excavated bulk of Telegraph Hill on the other. He could see the glow
and hear the rumble of Montgomery Street—the great central avenue
farther down the hill. Above the housetops was spread the warm blanket of
sea-fog under which the city was regularly laid to sleep every summer
night to the cool lullaby of the Northwest Trades. It was already
half-past eleven; footsteps on the wooden pavement were getting rarer and
more remote; the last cart had rumbled by; the shutters were up along the
street; the glare of his own red and blue jars was the only beacon left to
guide the wayfarers. Ordinarily he would have been going home at this
hour, when his partner, who occupied the surgery and a small bedroom at
the rear of the shop, always returned to relieve him. That night, however,
a professional visit would detain the “Doctor” until half-past twelve.
There was still an hour to wait. He felt drowsy; the mysterious incense of
the shop, that combined essence of drugs, spice, scented soap, and orris
root—which always reminded him of the Arabian Nights—was
affecting him. He yawned, and then, turning away, passed behind the
counter, took down a jar labeled “Glycyrr. Glabra,” selected a piece of
Spanish licorice, and meditatively sucked it. Not receiving from it that
diversion and sustenance he apparently was seeking, he also visited, in an
equally familiar manner, a jar marked “Jujubes,” and returned ruminatingly
to his previous position.

If I have not in this incident sufficiently established the youthfulness
of the junior partner, I may add briefly that he was just nineteen, that
he had early joined the emigration to California, and after one or two
previous light-hearted essays at other occupations, for which he was
singularly unfitted, he had saved enough to embark on his present venture,
still less suited to his temperament. In those adventurous days trades and
vocations were not always filled by trained workmen; it was extremely
probable that the experienced chemist was already making his success as a
gold-miner, with a lawyer and a physician for his partners, and Mr. Kane’s
inexperienced position was by no means a novel one. A slight knowledge of
Latin as a written language, an American schoolboy’s acquaintance with
chemistry and natural philosophy, were deemed sufficient by his partner, a
regular physician, for practical cooperation in the vending of drugs and
putting up of prescriptions. He knew the difference between acids and
alkalies and the peculiar results which attended their incautious
combination. But he was excessively deliberate, painstaking, and cautious.
The legend which adorned the desk at the counter, “Physicians’
prescriptions carefully prepared,” was more than usually true as regarded
the adverb. There was no danger of his poisoning anybody through haste or
carelessness, but it was possible that an urgent “case” might have
succumbed to the disease while he was putting up the remedy. Nor was his
caution entirely passive. In those days the “heroic” practice of medicine
was in keeping with the abnormal development of the country; there were
“record” doses of calomel and quinine, and he had once or twice incurred
the fury of local practitioners by sending back their prescriptions with a
modest query.

The far-off clatter of carriage wheels presently arrested his attention;
looking down the street, he could see the lights of a hackney carriage
advancing towards him. They had already flashed upon the open crossing a
block beyond before his vague curiosity changed into an active instinctive
presentiment that they were coming to the shop. He withdrew to a more
becoming and dignified position behind the counter as the carriage drew up
with a jerk before the door.

The driver rolled from his box and opened the carriage door to a woman
whom he assisted, between some hysterical exclamations on her part and
some equally incoherent explanations of his own, into the shop. Kane saw
at a glance that both were under the influence of liquor, and one, the
woman, was disheveled and bleeding about the head. Yet she was elegantly
dressed and evidently en fete, with one or two “tricolor” knots and
ribbons mingled with her finery. Her golden hair, matted and darkened with
blood, had partly escaped from her French bonnet and hung heavily over her
shoulders. The driver, who was supporting her roughly, and with a
familiarity that was part of the incongruous spectacle, was the first to
speak.

“Madame le Blank! ye know! Got cut about the head down at the fete at
South Park! Tried to dance upon the table, and rolled over on some
champagne bottles. See? Wants plastering up!”

She stopped suddenly and lapsed heavily against the counter. At which Kane
hurried around to support her into the surgery with the one fixed idea in
his bewildered mind of getting her out of the shop, and, suggestively,
into the domain and under the responsibility of his partner. The hackman,
apparently relieved and washing his hands of any further complicity in the
matter, nodded and smiled, and saying, “I reckon I’ll wait outside,
pardner,” retreated incontinently to his vehicle. To add to Kane’s
half-ludicrous embarrassment the fair patient herself slightly resisted
his support, accused the hackman of “abandoning her,” and demanded if Kane
knew “zee reason of zees affair,” yet she presently lapsed again into the
large reclining-chair which he had wheeled forward, with open mouth,
half-shut eyes, and a strange Pierrette mask of face, combined of the
pallor of faintness and chalk, and the rouge of paint and blood. At which
Kane’s cautiousness again embarrassed him. A little brandy from the bottle
labeled “Vini Galli” seemed to be indicated, but his inexperience could
not determine if her relaxation was from bloodlessness or the reacting
depression of alcohol. In this dilemma he chose a medium course, with
aromatic spirits of ammonia, and mixing a diluted quantity in a
measuring-glass, poured it between her white lips. A start, a struggle, a
cough—a volley of imprecatory French, and the knocking of the glass
from his hand followed—but she came to! He quickly sponged her head
of the half-coagulated blood, and removed a few fragments of glass from a
long laceration of the scalp. The shock of the cold water and the
appearance of the ensanguined basin frightened her into a momentary
passivity. But when Kane found it necessary to cut her hair in the region
of the wound in order to apply the adhesive plaster, she again endeavored
to rise and grasp the scissors.

“You’ll bleed to death if you’re not quiet,” said the young man with
dogged gravity.

Something in his manner impressed her into silence again. He cut whole
locks away ruthlessly; he was determined to draw the edges of the wound
together with the strip of plaster and stop the bleeding—if he
cropped the whole head. His excessive caution for her physical condition
did not extend to her superficial adornment. Her yellow tresses lay on the
floor, her neck and shoulders were saturated with water from the sponge
which he continually applied, until the heated strips of plaster had
closed the wound almost hermetically. She whimpered, tears ran down her
cheeks; but so long as it was not blood the young man was satisfied.

In the midst of it he heard the shop door open, and presently the sound of
rapping on the counter. Another customer!

Mr. Kane called out, “Wait a moment,” and continued his ministrations.
After a pause the rapping recommenced. Kane was just securing the last
strip of plaster and preserved a preoccupied silence. Then the door flew
open abruptly and a figure appeared impatiently on the threshold. It was
that of a miner recently returned from the gold diggings—so recently
that he evidently had not had time to change his clothes at his adjacent
hotel, and stood there in his high boots, duck trousers, and flannel
shirt, over which his coat was slung like a hussar’s jacket from his
shoulder. Kane would have uttered an indignant protest at the intrusion,
had not the intruder himself as quickly recoiled with an astonishment and
contrition that was beyond the effect of any reproval. He literally gasped
at the spectacle before him. A handsomely dressed woman reclining in a
chair; lace and jewelry and ribbons depending from her saturated
shoulders; tresses of golden hair filling her lap and lying on the floor;
a pail of ruddy water and a sponge at her feet, and a pale young man
bending over her head with a spirit lamp and strips of yellow plaster!

“‘Scuse me, pard! I was just dropping in; don’t you hurry! I kin wait,” he
stammered, falling back, and then the door closed abruptly behind him.

Kane gathered up the shorn locks, wiped the face and neck of his patient
with a clean towel and his own handkerchief, threw her gorgeous opera
cloak over her shoulders, and assisted her to rise. She did so, weakly but
obediently; she was evidently stunned and cowed in some mysterious way by
his material attitude, perhaps, or her sudden realization of her position;
at least the contrast between her aggressive entrance into the shop and
her subdued preparation for her departure was so remarkable that it
affected even Kane’s preoccupation.

“There,” he said, slightly relaxing his severe demeanor with an
encouraging smile, “I think this will do; we’ve stopped the bleeding. It
will probably smart a little as the plaster sets closer. I can send my
partner, Dr. Sparlow, to you in the morning.”

She looked at him curiously and with a strange smile. “And zees Doctor
Sparrlow—eez he like you, M’sieu?”

“He is older, and very well known,” said the young man seriously. “I can
safely recommend him.”

“Ah,” she repeated, with a pensive smile which made Kane think her quite
pretty. “Ah—he ez older—your Doctor Sparrlow—but YOU are
strong, M’sieu.”

“And,” said Kane vaguely, “he will tell you what to do.”

“Ah,” she repeated again softly, with the same smile, “he will tell me
what to do if I shall not know myself. Dat ez good.”

Kane had already wrapped her shorn locks in a piece of spotless white
paper and tied it up with narrow white ribbon in the dainty fashion dear
to druggists’ clerks. As he handed it to her she felt in her pocket and
produced a handful of gold.

“What shall I pay for zees, M’sieu?”

Kane reddened a little—solely because of his slow arithmetical
faculties. Adhesive plaster was cheap—he would like to have charged
proportionately for the exact amount he had used; but the division was
beyond him! And he lacked the trader’s instinct.

“Twenty-five cents, I think,” he hazarded briefly.

She started, but smiled again. “Twenty-five cents for all zees—ze
medicine, ze strips for ze head, ze hair cut”—she glanced at the
paper parcel he had given her—“it is only twenty-five cents?”

“That’s all.”

He selected from her outstretched palm, with some difficulty, the exact
amount, the smallest coin it held. She again looked at him curiously—half
confusedly—and moved slowly into the shop. The miner, who was still
there, retreated as before with a gaspingly apologetic gesture—even
flattening himself against the window to give her sweeping silk flounces
freer passage. As she passed into the street with a “Merci, M’sieu, good
a’night,” and the hackman started from the vehicle to receive her, the
miner drew a long breath, and bringing his fist down upon the counter,
ejaculated,—

“B’gosh! She’s a stunner!”

Kane, a good deal relieved at her departure and the success of his
ministration, smiled benignly.

The stranger again stared after the retreating carriage, looked around the
shop, and even into the deserted surgery, and approached the counter
confidentially. “Look yer, pardner. I kem straight from St. Jo, Mizzorri,
to Gold Hill—whar I’ve got a claim—and I reckon this is the
first time I ever struck San Francisker. I ain’t up to towny ways nohow,
and I allow that mebbe I’m rather green. So we’ll let that pass! Now look
yer!” he added, leaning over the counter with still deeper and even
mysterious confidence, “I suppose this yer kind o’ thing is the regular go
here, eh? nothin’ new to YOU! in course no! But to me, pard, it’s just
fetchin’ me! Lifts me clear outer my boots every time! Why, when I popped
into that thar room, and saw that lady—all gold, furbelows, and
spangles—at twelve o’clock at night, sittin’ in that cheer and you
a-cuttin’ her h’r and swabbin’ her head o’ blood, and kinder prospectin’
for ‘indications,’ so to speak, and doin’ it so kam and indifferent like,
I sez to myself, ‘Rube, Rube,’ sez I, ‘this yer’s life! city life! San
Francisker life! and b’gosh, you’ve dropped into it! Now, pard, look yar!
don’t you answer, ye know, ef it ain’t square and above board for me to
know; I ain’t askin’ you to give the show away, ye know, in the matter of
high-toned ladies like that, but” (very mysteriously, and sinking his
voice to the lowest confidential pitch, as he put his hand to his ear as
if to catch the hushed reply), “what mout hev bin happening, pard?”

Considerably amused at the man’s simplicity, Kane replied good-humoredly:
“Danced among some champagne bottles on a table at a party, fell and got
cut by glass.”

The stranger nodded his head slowly and approvingly as he repeated with
infinite deliberateness: “Danced on champagne bottles, champagne! you
said, pard? at a pahty! Yes!” (musingly and approvingly). “I reckon that’s
about the gait they take. SHE’D do it.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? sorry to have kept you waiting,” said
Kane, glancing at the clock.

“O ME! Lord! ye needn’t mind me. Why, I should wait for anythin’ o’ the
like o’ that, and be just proud to do it! And ye see, I sorter helped
myself while you war busy.”

“Helped yourself?” said Kane in astonishment.

“Yes, outer that bottle.” He pointed to the ammonia bottle, which still
stood on the counter. “It seemed to be handy and popular.”

“Man! you might have poisoned yourself.”

The stranger paused a moment at the idea. “So I mout, I reckon,” he said
musingly, “that’s so! pizined myself jest ez you was lookin’ arter that
high-toned case, and kinder bothered you! It’s like me!”

“I mean it required diluting; you ought to have taken it in water,” said
Kane.

“I reckon! It DID sorter h’ist me over to the door for a little fresh air
at first! seemed rayther scaldy to the lips. But wot of it that GOT THAR,”
he put his hand gravely to his stomach, “did me pow’ful good.”

“What was the matter with you?” asked Kane.

“Well, ye see, pard” (confidentially again), “I reckon it’s suthin’ along
o’ my heart. Times it gets to poundin’ away like a quartz stamp, and then
it stops suddent like, and kinder leaves ME out too.”

Kane looked at him more attentively. He was a strong, powerfully built man
with a complexion that betrayed nothing more serious than the effects of
mining cookery. It was evidently a common case of indigestion.

“I don’t say it would not have done you some good if properly
administered,” he replied. “If you like I’ll put up a diluted quantity and
directions?”

“That’s me, every time, pardner!” said the stranger with an accent of
relief. “And look yer, don’t you stop at that! Ye just put me up some
samples like of anythin’ you think mout be likely to hit. I’ll go in for a
fair show, and then meander in every now and then, betwixt times, to let
you know. Ye don’t mind my drifting in here, do ye? It’s about ez likely a
place ez I struck since I’ve left the Sacramento boat, and my hotel, just
round the corner. Ye just sample me a bit o’ everythin’; don’t mind the
expense. I’ll take YOUR word for it. The way you—a young fellow—jest
stuck to your work in thar, cool and kam as a woodpecker—not minding
how high-toned she was—nor the jewelery and spangles she had on—jest
got me! I sez to myself, ‘Rube,’ sez I, ‘whatever’s wrong o’ YOUR insides,
you jest stick to that feller to set ye right.’”

The junior partner’s face reddened as he turned to his shelves ostensibly
for consultation. Conscious of his inexperience, the homely praise of even
this ignorant man was not ungrateful. He felt, too, that his treatment of
the Frenchwoman, though successful, might not be considered remunerative
from a business point of view by his partner. He accordingly acted upon
the suggestion of the stranger and put up two or three specifics for
dyspepsia. They were received with grateful alacrity and the casual
display of considerable gold in the stranger’s pocket in the process of
payment. He was evidently a successful miner.

After bestowing the bottles carefully about his person, he again leaned
confidentially towards Kane. “I reckon of course you know this high-toned
lady, being in the way of seein’ that kind o’ folks. I suppose you won’t
mind telling me, ez a stranger. But” (he added hastily, with a deprecatory
wave of his hand), “perhaps ye would.”

Mr. Kane, in fact, had hesitated. He knew vaguely and by report that
Madame le Blanc was the proprietress of a famous restaurant, over which
she had rooms where private gambling was carried on to a great extent. It
was also alleged that she was protected by a famous gambler and a somewhat
notorious bully. Mr. Kane’s caution suggested that he had no right to
expose the reputation of his chance customer. He was silent.

The stranger’s face became intensely sympathetic and apologetic. “I see!—not
another word, pard! It ain’t the square thing to be givin’ her away, and I
oughtn’t to hev asked. Well—so long! I reckon I’ll jest drift back
to the hotel. I ain’t been in San Francisker mor’ ‘n three hours, and I
calkilate, pard, that I’ve jest seen about ez square a sample of
high-toned life as fellers ez haz bin here a year. Well, hastermanyanner—ez
the Greasers say. I’ll be droppin’ in to-morrow. My name’s Reuben Allen o’
Mariposa. I know yours; it’s on the sign, and it ain’t Sparlow.”

He cast another lingering glance around the shop, as if loath to leave it,
and then slowly sauntered out of the door, pausing in the street a moment,
in the glare of the red light, before he faded into darkness. Without
knowing exactly why, Kane had an instinct that the stranger knew no one in
San Francisco, and after leaving the shop was going into utter silence and
obscurity.

A few moments later Dr. Sparlow returned to relieve his wearied partner. A
pushing, active man, he listened impatiently to Kane’s account of his
youthful practice with Madame le Blanc, without, however, dwelling much on
his methods. “You ought to have charged her more,” the elder said
decisively. “She’d have paid it. She only came here because she was
ashamed to go to a big shop in Montgomery Street—and she won’t come
again.”

“But she wants you to see her to-morrow,” urged Kane, “and I told her you
would!”

“You say it was only a superficial cut?” queried the doctor, “and you
closed it? Umph! what can she want to see ME for?” He paid more attention,
however, to the case of the stranger, Allen. “When he comes here again,
manage to let me see him.” Mr. Kane promised, yet for some indefinable
reason he went home that night not quite as well satisfied with himself.

He was much more concerned the next morning when, after relieving the
doctor for his regular morning visits, he was startled an hour later by
the abrupt return of that gentleman. His face was marked by some
excitement and anxiety, which nevertheless struggled with that sense of
the ludicrous which Californians in those days imported into most
situations of perplexity or catastrophe. Putting his hands deeply into his
trousers pockets, he confronted his youthful partner behind the counter.

“How much did you charge that French-woman?” he said gravely.

“Twenty-five cents,” said Kane timidly.

“Well, I’d give it back and add two hundred and fifty dollars if she had
never entered the shop.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Her head will be—and a mass of it, in a day, I reckon! Why, man,
you put enough plaster on it to clothe and paper the dome of the Capitol!
You drew her scalp together so that she couldn’t shut her eyes without
climbing up the bed-post! You mowed her hair off so that she’ll have to
wear a wig for the next two years—and handed it to her in a
beau-ti-ful sealed package! They talk of suing me and killing you out of
hand.”

“She was bleeding a great deal and looked faint,” said the junior partner;
“I thought I ought to stop that.”

“And you did—by thunder! Though it might have been better business
for the shop if I’d found her a crumbling ruin here, than lathed and
plastered in this fashion, over there! However,” he added, with a laugh,
seeing an angry light in his junior partner’s eye, “SHE don’t seem to mind
it—the cursing all comes from THEM. SHE rather likes your style and
praises it—that’s what gets me! Did you talk to her much,” he added,
looking critically at his partner.

“I only told her to sit still or she’d bleed to death,” said Kane curtly.

“Humph!—she jabbered something about your being ‘strong’ and knowing
just how to handle her. Well, it can’t be helped now. I think I came in
time for the worst of it and have drawn their fire. Don’t do it again. The
next time a woman with a cut head and long hair tackles you, fill up her
scalp with lint and tannin, and pack her off to some of the big shops and
make THEM pick it out.” And with a good-humored nod he started off to
finish his interrupted visits.

With a vague sense of remorse, and yet a consciousness of some injustice
done him, Mr. Kane resumed his occupation with filters and funnels, and
mortars and triturations. He was so gloomily preoccupied that he did not,
as usual, glance out of the window, or he would have observed the mining
stranger of the previous night before it. It was not until the man’s bowed
shoulders blocked the light of the doorway that he looked up and
recognized him. Kane was in no mood to welcome his appearance. His
presence, too, actively recalled the last night’s adventure of which he
was a witness—albeit a sympathizing one. Kane shrank from the
illusions which he felt he would be sure to make. And with his present ill
luck, he was by no means sure that his ministrations even to HIM had been
any more successful than they had been to the Frenchwoman. But a glance at
his good-humored face and kindling eyes removed that suspicion.
Nevertheless, he felt somewhat embarrassed and impatient, and perhaps
could not entirely conceal it. He forgot that the rudest natures are
sometimes the most delicately sensitive to slights, and the stranger had
noticed his manner and began apologetically.

“I allowed I’d just drop in anyway to tell ye that these thar pills you
giv’ me did me a heap o’ good so far—though mebbe it’s only fair to
give the others a show too, which I’m reckoning to do.” He paused, and
then in a submissive confidence went on: “But first I wanted to hev you
excuse me for havin’ asked all them questions about that high-toned lady
last night, when it warn’t none of my business. I am a darned fool.”

Mr. Kane instantly saw that it was no use to keep up his attitude of
secrecy, or impose upon the ignorant, simple man, and said hurriedly: “Oh
no. The lady is very well known. She is the proprietress of a restaurant
down the street—a house open to everybody. Her name is Madame le
Blanc; you may have heard of her before?”

To his surprise the man exhibited no diminution of interest nor change of
sentiment at this intelligence. “Then,” he said slowly, “I reckon I might
get to see her again. Ye see, Mr. Kane, I rather took a fancy to her
general style and gait—arter seein’ her in that fix last night. It
was rather like them play pictures on the stage. Ye don’t think she’d make
any fuss to seein’ a rough old ‘forty-niner’ like me?”

“Hardly,” said Kane, “but there might be some objection from her gentlemen
friends,” he added, with a smile,—“Jack Lane, a gambler, who keeps a
faro bank in her rooms, and Jimmy O’Ryan, a prize-fighter, who is one of
her ‘chuckers out.’”

His further relation of Madame le Blanc’s entourage apparently gave the
miner no concern. He looked at Kane, nodded, and repeated slowly and
appreciatively: “Yes, keeps a gamblin’ and faro bank and a prize-fighter—I
reckon that might be about her gait and style too. And you say she lives”—

He stopped, for at this moment a man entered the shop quickly, shut the
door behind him, and turned the key in the lock. It was done so quickly
that Kane instinctively felt that the man had been loitering in the
vicinity and had approached from the side street. A single glance at the
intruder’s face and figure showed him that it was the bully of whom he had
just spoken. He had seen that square, brutal face once before, confronting
the police in a riot, and had not forgotten it. But today, with the flush
of liquor on it, it had an impatient awkwardness and confused
embarrassment that he could not account for. He did not comprehend that
the genuine bully is seldom deliberate of attack, and is obliged—in
common with many of the combative lower animals—to lash himself into
a previous fury of provocation. This probably saved him, as perhaps some
instinctive feeling that he was in no immediate danger kept him cool. He
remained standing quietly behind the counter. Allen glanced around
carelessly, looking at the shelves.

The silence of the two men apparently increased the ruffian’s rage and
embarrassment. Suddenly he leaped into the air with a whoop and clumsily
executed a negro double shuffle on the floor, which jarred the glasses—yet
was otherwise so singularly ineffective and void of purpose that he
stopped in the midst of it and had to content himself with glaring at
Kane.

“Well,” said Kane quietly, “what does all this mean? What do you want
here?”

“What does it mean?” repeated the bully, finding his voice in a high
falsetto, designed to imitate Kane’s. “It means I’m going to play merry
h-ll with this shop! It means I’m goin’ to clean it out and the blank
hair-cuttin’ blank that keeps it. What do I want here? Well—what I
want I intend to help myself to, and all h-ll can’t stop me! And” (working
himself to the striking point) “who the blank are you to ask me?” He
sprang towards the counter, but at the same moment Allen seemed to slip
almost imperceptibly and noiselessly between them, and Kane found himself
confronted only by the miner’s broad back.

“Hol’ yer hosses, stranger,” said Allen slowly, as the ruffian suddenly
collided with his impassive figure. “I’m a sick man comin’ in yer for
medicine. I’ve got somethin’ wrong with my heart, and goin’s on like this
yer kinder sets it to thumpin’.”

“Blank you and your blank heart!” screamed the bully, turning in a fury of
amazement and contempt at this impotent interruption. “Who”—but his
voice stopped. Allen’s powerful right arm had passed over his head and
shoulders like a steel hoop, and pinioned his elbows against his sides.
Held rigidly upright, he attempted to kick, but Allen’s right leg here
advanced, and firmly held his lower limbs against the counter that shook
to his struggles and blasphemous outcries. Allen turned quietly to Kane,
and, with a gesture of his unemployed arm, said confidentially:

“Thar,” said Allen, taking out the stopper and holding the pungent spirit
against the bully’s dilated nostrils and vociferous mouth, “thar, smell
that, and taste it, it will do ye good; it was powerful kammin’ to ME last
night.”

The ruffian gasped, coughed, choked, but his blaspheming voice died away
in a suffocating hiccough.

“Thar,” continued Allen, as his now subdued captive relaxed his
struggling, “ye ‘r’ better, and so am I. It’s quieter here now, and ye
ain’t affectin’ my heart so bad. A little fresh air will make us both all
right.” He turned again to Kane in his former subdued confidential manner.

“Would ye mind openin’ that door?”

Kane flew to the door, unlocked it, and held it wide open. The bully again
began to struggle, but a second inhalation of the hartshorn quelled him,
and enabled his captor to drag him to the door. As they emerged upon the
sidewalk, the bully, with a final desperate struggle, freed his arm and
grasped his pistol at his hip-pocket, but at the same moment Allen
deliberately caught his hand, and with a powerful side throw cast him on
the pavement, retaining the weapon in his own hand. “I’ve one of my own,”
he said to the prostrate man, “but I reckon I’ll keep this yer too, until
you’re better.”

The crowd that had collected quickly, recognizing the notorious and
discomfited bully, were not of a class to offer him any sympathy, and he
slunk away followed by their jeers. Allen returned quietly to the shop.
Kane was profuse in his thanks, and yet oppressed with his simple friend’s
fatuous admiration for a woman who could keep such ruffians in her employ.
“You know who that man was, I suppose?” he said.

“I reckon it was that ‘er prize-fighter belongin’ to that high-toned
lady,” returned Allen simply. “But he don’t know anything about RASTLIN’,
b’gosh; only that I was afraid o’ bringin’ on that heart trouble, I mout
hev hurt him bad.”

“They think”—hesitated Kane, “that—I—was rough in my
treatment of that woman and maliciously cut off her hair. This attack was
revenge—or”—he hesitated still more, as he remembered Dr.
Sparlow’s indication of the woman’s feeling—“or that bully’s idea of
revenge.”

“I see,” nodded Allen, opening his small sympathetic eyes on Kane with an
exasperating air of secrecy—“just jealousy.”

Kane reddened in sheer hopelessness of explanation. “No; it was earning
his wages, as he thought.”

“Never ye mind, pard,” said Allen confidentially. “I’ll set ‘em both
right. Ye see, this sorter gives me a show to call at that thar restaurant
and give HIM back his six-shooter, and set her on the right trail for you.
Why, Lordy! I was here when you was fixin’ her—I’m testimony o’ the
way you did it—and she’ll remember me. I’ll sorter waltz round thar
this afternoon. But I reckon I won’t be keepin’ YOU from your work any
longer. And look yar!—I say, pard!—this is seein’ life in
‘Frisco—ain’t it? Gosh! I’ve had more high times in this very shop
in two days, than I’ve had in two years of St. Jo. So long, Mr. Kane!” He
waved his hand, lounged slowly out of the shop, gave a parting glance up
the street, passed the window, and was gone.

The next day being a half-holiday for Kane, he did not reach the shop
until afternoon. “Your mining friend Allen has been here,” said Doctor
Sparlow. “I took the liberty of introducing myself, and induced him to let
me carefully examine him. He was a little shy, and I am sorry for it, as I
fear he has some serious organic trouble with his heart and ought to have
a more thorough examination.” Seeing Kane’s unaffected concern, he added,
“You might influence him to do so. He’s a good fellow and ought to take
some care of himself. By the way, he told me to tell you that he’d seen
Madame le Blanc and made it all right about you. He seems to be quite
infatuated with the woman.”

“I’m sorry he ever saw her,” said Kane bitterly.

“Well, his seeing her seems to have saved the shop from being smashed up,
and you from getting a punched head,” returned the Doctor with a laugh.
“He’s no fool—yet it’s a freak of human nature that a simple hayseed
like that—a man who’s lived in the backwoods all his life, is likely
to be the first to tumble before a pot of French rouge like her.”

Indeed, in a couple of weeks, there was no further doubt of Mr. Reuben
Allen’s infatuation. He dropped into the shop frequently on his way to and
from the restaurant, where he now regularly took his meals; he spent his
evenings in gambling in its private room. Yet Kane was by no means sure
that he was losing his money there unfairly, or that he was used as a
pigeon by the proprietress and her friends. The bully O’Ryan was turned
away; Sparlow grimly suggested that Allen had simply taken his place, but
Kane ingeniously retorted that the Doctor was only piqued because Allen
had evaded his professional treatment. Certainly the patient had never
consented to another examination, although he repeatedly and gravely
bought medicines, and was a generous customer. Once or twice Kane thought
it his duty to caution Allen against his new friends and enlighten him as
to Madame le Blanc’s reputation, but his suggestions were received with a
good-humored submission that was either the effect of unbelief or of
perfect resignation to the fact, and he desisted. One morning Dr. Sparlow
said cheerfully:—

“Would you like to hear the last thing about your friend and the
Frenchwoman? The boys can’t account for her singling out a fellow like
that for her friend, so they say that the night that she cut herself at
the fete and dropped in here for assistance, she found nobody here but
Allen—a chance customer! That it was HE who cut off her hair and
bound up her wounds in that sincere fashion, and she believed he had saved
her life.” The Doctor grinned maliciously as he added: “And as that’s the
way history is written you see your reputation is safe.”

It may have been a month later that San Francisco was thrown into a
paroxysm of horror and indignation over the assassination of a prominent
citizen and official in the gambling-rooms of Madame le Blanc, at the
hands of a notorious gambler. The gambler had escaped, but in one of those
rare spasms of vengeful morality which sometimes overtakes communities who
have too long winked at and suffered the existence of evil, the fair
proprietress and her whole entourage were arrested and haled before the
coroner’s jury at the inquest. The greatest excitement prevailed; it was
said that if the jury failed in their duty, the Vigilance Committee had
arranged for the destruction of the establishment and the deportation of
its inmates. The crowd that had collected around the building was
reinforced by Kane and Dr. Sparlow, who had closed their shop in the next
block to attend. When Kane had fought his way into the building and the
temporary court, held in the splendidly furnished gambling saloon, whose
gilded mirrors reflected the eager faces of the crowd, the Chief of Police
was giving his testimony in a formal official manner, impressive only for
its relentless and impassive revelation of the character and antecedents
of the proprietress. The house had been long under the espionage of the
police; Madame le Blanc had a dozen aliases; she was “wanted” in New
Orleans, in New York, in Havana! It was in HER house that Dyer, the bank
clerk, committed suicide; it was there that Colonel Hooley was set upon by
her bully, O’Ryan; it was she—Kane heard with reddening cheeks—who
defied the police with riotous conduct at a fete two months ago. As he
coolly recited the counts of this shameful indictment, Kane looked eagerly
around for Allen, whom he knew had been arrested as a witness. How would
HE take this terrible disclosure? He was sitting with the others, his arm
thrown over the back of his chair, and his good-humored face turned
towards the woman, in his old confidential attitude. SHE, gorgeously
dressed, painted, but unblushing, was cool, collected, and cynical.

The Coroner next called the only witness of the actual tragedy, “Reuben
Allen.” The man did not move nor change his position. The summons was
repeated; a policeman touched him on the shoulder. There was a pause, and
the officer announced: “He has fainted, your Honor!”

“Is there a physician present?” asked the Coroner.

Sparlow edged his way quickly to the front. “I’m a medical man,” he said
to the Coroner, as he passed quickly to the still, upright, immovable
figure and knelt beside it with his head upon his heart. There was an awed
silence as, after a pause, he rose slowly to his feet.

“The witness is a patient, your Honor, whom I examined some weeks ago and
found suffering from valvular disease of the heart. He is dead.”

THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD

“Oh! it’s you, is it?” said the Editor.

The Chinese boy to whom the colloquialism was addressed answered
literally, after his habit:—

“Allee same Li Tee; me no changee. Me no ollee China boy.”

“That’s so,” said the Editor with an air of conviction. “I don’t suppose
there’s another imp like you in all Trinidad County. Well, next time don’t
scratch outside there like a gopher, but come in.”

It was quite true—the highly sylvan surroundings of the Trinidad
“Sentinel” office—a little clearing in a pine forest—and its
attendant fauna, made these signals confusing. An accurate imitation of a
woodpecker was also one of Li Tee’s accomplishments.

The Editor without replying finished the note he was writing; at which Li
Tee, as if struck by some coincident recollection, lifted up his long
sleeve, which served him as a pocket, and carelessly shook out a letter on
the table like a conjuring trick. The Editor, with a reproachful glance at
him, opened it. It was only the ordinary request of an agricultural
subscriber—one Johnson—that the Editor would “notice” a giant
radish grown by the subscriber and sent by the bearer.

“Where’s the radish, Li Tee?” said the Editor suspiciously.

“No hab got. Ask Mellikan boy.”

“What?”

Here Li Tee condescended to explain that on passing the schoolhouse he had
been set upon by the schoolboys, and that in the struggle the big radish—being,
like most such monstrosities of the quick Californian soil, merely a mass
of organized water—was “mashed” over the head of some of his
assailants. The Editor, painfully aware of these regular persecutions of
his errand boy, and perhaps realizing that a radish which could not be
used as a bludgeon was not of a sustaining nature, forebore any reproof.
“But I cannot notice what I haven’t seen, Li Tee,” he said good-humoredly.

The Editor preserved a dignified silence until he had addressed his
letter. “Take this to Mrs. Martin,” he said, handing it to the boy; “and
mind you keep clear of the schoolhouse. Don’t go by the Flat either if the
men are at work, and don’t, if you value your skin, pass Flanigan’s
shanty, where you set off those firecrackers and nearly burnt him out the
other day. Look out for Barker’s dog at the crossing, and keep off the
main road if the tunnel men are coming over the hill.” Then remembering
that he had virtually closed all the ordinary approaches to Mrs. Martin’s
house, he added, “Better go round by the woods, where you won’t meet ANY
ONE.”

The boy darted off through the open door, and the Editor stood for a
moment looking regretfully after him. He liked his little protege ever
since that unfortunate child—a waif from a Chinese wash-house—was
impounded by some indignant miners for bringing home a highly imperfect
and insufficient washing, and kept as hostage for a more proper return of
the garments. Unfortunately, another gang of miners, equally aggrieved,
had at the same time looted the wash-house and driven off the occupants,
so that Li Tee remained unclaimed. For a few weeks he became a sporting
appendage of the miners’ camp; the stolid butt of good-humored practical
jokes, the victim alternately of careless indifference or of extravagant
generosity. He received kicks and half-dollars intermittently, and
pocketed both with stoical fortitude. But under this treatment he
presently lost the docility and frugality which was part of his
inheritance, and began to put his small wits against his tormentors, until
they grew tired of their own mischief and his. But they knew not what to
do with him. His pretty nankeen-yellow skin debarred him from the white
“public school,” while, although as a heathen he might have reasonably
claimed attention from the Sabbath-school, the parents who cheerfully gave
their contributions to the heathen ABROAD, objected to him as a companion
of their children in the church at home. At this juncture the Editor
offered to take him into his printing office as a “devil.” For a while he
seemed to be endeavoring, in his old literal way, to act up to that title.
He inked everything but the press. He scratched Chinese characters of an
abusive import on “leads,” printed them, and stuck them about the office;
he put “punk” in the foreman’s pipe, and had been seen to swallow small
type merely as a diabolical recreation. As a messenger he was fleet of
foot, but uncertain of delivery. Some time previously the Editor had
enlisted the sympathies of Mrs. Martin, the good-natured wife of a farmer,
to take him in her household on trial, but on the third day Li Tee had run
away. Yet the Editor had not despaired, and it was to urge her to a second
attempt that he dispatched that letter.

He was still gazing abstractedly into the depths of the wood when he was
conscious of a slight movement—but no sound—in a clump of
hazel near him, and a stealthy figure glided from it. He at once
recognized it as “Jim,” a well-known drunken Indian vagrant of the
settlement—tied to its civilization by the single link of “fire
water,” for which he forsook equally the Reservation where it was
forbidden and his own camps where it was unknown. Unconscious of his
silent observer, he dropped upon all fours, with his ear and nose
alternately to the ground like some tracking animal. Then having satisfied
himself, he rose, and bending forward in a dogged trot, made a straight
line for the woods. He was followed a few seconds later by his dog—a
slinking, rough, wolf-like brute, whose superior instinct, however, made
him detect the silent presence of some alien humanity in the person of the
Editor, and to recognize it with a yelp of habit, anticipatory of the
stone that he knew was always thrown at him.

“That’s cute,” said a voice, “but it’s just what I expected all along.”

The Editor turned quickly. His foreman was standing behind him, and had
evidently noticed the whole incident.

“It’s what I allus said,” continued the man. “That boy and that Injin are
thick as thieves. Ye can’t see one without the other—and they’ve got
their little tricks and signals by which they follow each other. T’other
day when you was kalkilatin’ Li Tee was doin’ your errands I tracked him
out on the marsh, just by followin’ that ornery, pizenous dog o’ Jim’s.
There was the whole caboodle of ‘em—including Jim—campin’ out,
and eatin’ raw fish that Jim had ketched, and green stuff they had both
sneaked outer Johnson’s garden. Mrs. Martin may TAKE him, but she won’t
keep him long while Jim’s round. What makes Li foller that blamed old
Injin soaker, and what makes Jim, who, at least, is a ‘Merican, take up
with a furrin’ heathen, just gets me.”

The Editor did not reply. He had heard something of this before. Yet,
after all, why should not these equal outcasts of civilization cling
together!

Li Tee’s stay with Mrs. Martin was brief. His departure was hastened by an
untoward event—apparently ushered in, as in the case of other great
calamities, by a mysterious portent in the sky. One morning an
extraordinary bird of enormous dimensions was seen approaching from the
horizon, and eventually began to hover over the devoted town. Careful
scrutiny of this ominous fowl, however, revealed the fact that it was a
monstrous Chinese kite, in the shape of a flying dragon. The spectacle
imparted considerable liveliness to the community, which, however,
presently changed to some concern and indignation. It appeared that the
kite was secretly constructed by Li Tee in a secluded part of Mrs.
Martin’s clearing, but when it was first tried by him he found that
through some error of design it required a tail of unusual proportions.
This he hurriedly supplied by the first means he found—Mrs. Martin’s
clothes-line, with part of the weekly wash depending from it. This fact
was not at first noticed by the ordinary sightseer, although the tail
seemed peculiar—yet, perhaps, not more peculiar than a dragon’s tail
ought to be. But when the actual theft was discovered and reported through
the town, a vivacious interest was created, and spy-glasses were used to
identify the various articles of apparel still hanging on that ravished
clothes-line. These garments, in the course of their slow disengagement
from the clothes-pins through the gyrations of the kite, impartially
distributed themselves over the town—one of Mrs. Martin’s stockings
falling upon the veranda of the Polka Saloon, and the other being
afterwards discovered on the belfry of the First Methodist Church—to
the scandal of the congregation. It would have been well if the result of
Li Tee’s invention had ended here. Alas! the kite-flyer and his
accomplice, “Injin Jim,” were tracked by means of the kite’s tell-tale
cord to a lonely part of the marsh and rudely dispossessed of their charge
by Deacon Hornblower and a constable. Unfortunately, the captors
overlooked the fact that the kite-flyers had taken the precaution of
making a “half-turn” of the stout cord around a log to ease the tremendous
pull of the kite—whose power the captors had not reckoned upon—and
the Deacon incautiously substituted his own body for the log. A singular
spectacle is said to have then presented itself to the on-lookers. The
Deacon was seen to be running wildly by leaps and bounds over the marsh
after the kite, closely followed by the constable in equally wild efforts
to restrain him by tugging at the end of the line. The extraordinary race
continued to the town until the constable fell, losing his hold of the
line. This seemed to impart a singular specific levity to the Deacon, who,
to the astonishment of everybody, incontinently sailed up into a tree!
When he was succored and cut down from the demoniac kite, he was found to
have sustained a dislocation of the shoulder, and the constable was
severely shaken. By that one infelicitous stroke the two outcasts made an
enemy of the Law and the Gospel as represented in Trinidad County. It is
to be feared also that the ordinary emotional instinct of a frontier
community, to which they were now simply abandoned, was as little to be
trusted. In this dilemma they disappeared from the town the next day—no
one knew where. A pale blue smoke rising from a lonely island in the bay
for some days afterwards suggested their possible refuge. But nobody
greatly cared. The sympathetic mediation of the Editor was
characteristically opposed by Mr. Parkin Skinner, a prominent citizen:—

“It’s all very well for you to talk sentiment about niggers, Chinamen, and
Injins, and you fellers can laugh about the Deacon being snatched up to
heaven like Elijah in that blamed Chinese chariot of a kite—but I
kin tell you, gentlemen, that this is a white man’s country! Yes, sir, you
can’t get over it! The nigger of every description—yeller, brown, or
black, call him ‘Chinese,’ ‘Injin,’ or ‘Kanaka,’ or what you like—hez
to clar off of God’s footstool when the Anglo-Saxon gets started! It
stands to reason that they can’t live alongside o’ printin’ presses,
M’Cormick’s reapers, and the Bible! Yes, sir! the Bible; and Deacon
Hornblower kin prove it to you. It’s our manifest destiny to clar them out—that’s
what we was put here for—and it’s just the work we’ve got to do!”

I have ventured to quote Mr. Skinner’s stirring remarks to show that
probably Jim and Li Tee ran away only in anticipation of a possible
lynching, and to prove that advanced sentiments of this high and ennobling
nature really obtained forty years ago in an ordinary American frontier
town which did not then dream of Expansion and Empire!

Howbeit, Mr. Skinner did not make allowance for mere human nature. One
morning Master Bob Skinner, his son, aged twelve, evaded the schoolhouse,
and started in an old Indian “dug-out” to invade the island of the
miserable refugees. His purpose was not clearly defined to himself, but
was to be modified by circumstances. He would either capture Li Tee and
Jim, or join them in their lawless existence. He had prepared himself for
either event by surreptitiously borrowing his father’s gun. He also
carried victuals, having heard that Jim ate grasshoppers and Li Tee rats,
and misdoubting his own capacity for either diet. He paddled slowly, well
in shore, to be secure from observation at home, and then struck out
boldly in his leaky canoe for the island—a tufted, tussocky shred of
the marshy promontory torn off in some tidal storm. It was a lovely day,
the bay being barely ruffled by the afternoon “trades;” but as he neared
the island he came upon the swell from the bar and the thunders of the
distant Pacific, and grew a little frightened. The canoe, losing way, fell
into the trough of the swell, shipping salt water, still more alarming to
the prairie-bred boy. Forgetting his plan of a stealthy invasion, he
shouted lustily as the helpless and water-logged boat began to drift past
the island; at which a lithe figure emerged from the reeds, threw off a
tattered blanket, and slipped noiselessly, like some animal, into the
water. It was Jim, who, half wading, half swimming, brought the canoe and
boy ashore. Master Skinner at once gave up the idea of invasion, and
concluded to join the refugees.

This was easy in his defenceless state, and his manifest delight in their
rude encampment and gypsy life, although he had been one of Li Tee’s
oppressors in the past. But that stolid pagan had a philosophical
indifference which might have passed for Christian forgiveness, and Jim’s
native reticence seemed like assent. And, possibly, in the minds of these
two vagabonds there might have been a natural sympathy for this other
truant from civilization, and some delicate flattery in the fact that
Master Skinner was not driven out, but came of his own accord. Howbeit,
they fished together, gathered cranberries on the marsh, shot a wild duck
and two plovers, and when Master Skinner assisted in the cooking of their
fish in a conical basket sunk in the ground, filled with water, heated by
rolling red-hot stones from their drift-wood fire into the buried basket,
the boy’s felicity was supreme. And what an afternoon! To lie, after this
feast, on their bellies in the grass, replete like animals, hidden from
everything but the sunshine above them; so quiet that gray clouds of
sandpipers settled fearlessly around them, and a shining brown muskrat
slipped from the ooze within a few feet of their faces—was to feel
themselves a part of the wild life in earth and sky. Not that their own
predatory instincts were hushed by this divine peace; that intermitting
black spot upon the water, declared by the Indian to be a seal, the
stealthy glide of a yellow fox in the ambush of a callow brood of
mallards, the momentary straying of an elk from the upland upon the
borders of the marsh, awoke their tingling nerves to the happy but
fruitless chase. And when night came, too soon, and they pigged together
around the warm ashes of their camp-fire, under the low lodge poles of
their wigwam of dried mud, reeds, and driftwood, with the combined odors
of fish, wood-smoke, and the warm salt breath of the marsh in their
nostrils, they slept contentedly. The distant lights of the settlement
went out one by one, the stars came out, very large and very silent, to
take their places. The barking of a dog on the nearest point was followed
by another farther inland. But Jim’s dog, curled at the feet of his
master, did not reply. What had HE to do with civilization?

The morning brought some fear of consequences to Master Skinner, but no
abatement of his resolve not to return. But here he was oddly combated by
Li Tee. “S’pose you go back allee same. You tellee fam’lee canoe go
topside down—you plentee swimee to bush. Allee night in bush. Housee
big way off—how can get? Sabe?”

“And I’ll leave the gun, and tell Dad that when the canoe upset the gun
got drowned,” said the boy eagerly.

Li Tee nodded.

“And come again Saturday, and bring more powder and shot and a bottle for
Jim,” said Master Skinner excitedly.

“Good!” grunted the Indian.

Then they ferried the boy over to the peninsula, and set him on a trail
across the marshes, known only to themselves, which would bring him home.
And when the Editor the next morning chronicled among his news, “Adrift on
the Bay—A Schoolboy’s Miraculous Escape,” he knew as little what
part his missing Chinese errand boy had taken in it as the rest of his
readers.

Meantime the two outcasts returned to their island camp. It may have
occurred to them that a little of the sunlight had gone from it with Bob;
for they were in a dull, stupid way fascinated by the little white tyrant
who had broken bread with them. He had been delightfully selfish and
frankly brutal to them, as only a schoolboy could be, with the addition of
the consciousness of his superior race. Yet they each longed for his
return, although he was seldom mentioned in their scanty conversation—carried
on in monosyllables, each in his own language, or with some common English
word, or more often restricted solely to signs. By a delicate flattery,
when they did speak of him it was in what they considered to be his own
language.

“Boston boy, plenty like catchee HIM,” Jim would say, pointing to a
distant swan. Or Li Tee, hunting a striped water snake from the reeds,
would utter stolidly, “Melikan boy no likee snake.” Yet the next two days
brought some trouble and physical discomfort to them. Bob had consumed, or
wasted, all their provisions—and, still more unfortunately, his
righteous visit, his gun, and his superabundant animal spirits had
frightened away the game, which their habitual quiet and taciturnity had
beguiled into trustfulness. They were half starved, but they did not blame
him. It would come all right when he returned. They counted the days, Jim
with secret notches on the long pole, Li Tee with a string of copper
“cash” he always kept with him. The eventful day came at last,—a
warm autumn day, patched with inland fog like blue smoke and smooth,
tranquil, open surfaces of wood and sea; but to their waiting, confident
eyes the boy came not out of either. They kept a stolid silence all that
day until night fell, when Jim said, “Mebbe Boston boy go dead.” Li Tee
nodded. It did not seem possible to these two heathens that anything else
could prevent the Christian child from keeping his word.

After that, by the aid of the canoe, they went much on the marsh, hunting
apart, but often meeting on the trail which Bob had taken, with grunts of
mutual surprise. These suppressed feelings, never made known by word or
gesture, at last must have found vicarious outlet in the taciturn dog, who
so far forgot his usual discretion as to once or twice seat himself on the
water’s edge and indulge in a fit of howling. It had been a custom of
Jim’s on certain days to retire to some secluded place, where, folded in
his blanket, with his back against a tree, he remained motionless for
hours. In the settlement this had been usually referred to the after
effects of drink, known as the “horrors,” but Jim had explained it by
saying it was “when his heart was bad.” And now it seemed, by these gloomy
abstractions, that “his heart was bad” very often. And then the long
withheld rains came one night on the wings of a fierce southwester,
beating down their frail lodge and scattering it abroad, quenching their
camp-fire, and rolling up the bay until it invaded their reedy island and
hissed in their ears. It drove the game from Jim’s gun; it tore the net
and scattered the bait of Li Tee, the fisherman. Cold and half starved in
heart and body, but more dogged and silent than ever, they crept out in
their canoe into the storm-tossed bay, barely escaping with their
miserable lives to the marshy peninsula. Here, on their enemy’s ground,
skulking in the rushes, or lying close behind tussocks, they at last
reached the fringe of forest below the settlement. Here, too, sorely
pressed by hunger, and doggedly reckless of consequences, they forgot
their caution, and a flight of teal fell to Jim’s gun on the very
outskirts of the settlement.

It was a fatal shot, whose echoes awoke the forces of civilization against
them. For it was heard by a logger in his hut near the marsh, who, looking
out, had seen Jim pass. A careless, good-natured frontiersman, he might
have kept the outcasts’ mere presence to himself; but there was that
damning shot! An Indian with a gun! That weapon, contraband of law, with
dire fines and penalties to whoso sold or gave it to him! A thing to be
looked into—some one to be punished! An Indian with a weapon that
made him the equal of the white! Who was safe? He hurried to town to lay
his information before the constable, but, meeting Mr. Skinner, imparted
the news to him. The latter pooh-poohed the constable, who he alleged had
not yet discovered the whereabouts of Jim, and suggested that a few armed
citizens should make the chase themselves. The fact was that Mr. Skinner,
never quite satisfied in his mind with his son’s account of the loss of
the gun, had put two and two together, and was by no means inclined to
have his own gun possibly identified by the legal authority. Moreover, he
went home and at once attacked Master Bob with such vigor and so highly
colored a description of the crime he had committed, and the penalties
attached to it, that Bob confessed. More than that, I grieve to say that
Bob lied. The Indian had “stoled his gun,” and threatened his life if he
divulged the theft. He told how he was ruthlessly put ashore, and
compelled to take a trail only known to them to reach his home. In two
hours it was reported throughout the settlement that the infamous Jim had
added robbery with violence to his illegal possession of the weapon. The
secret of the island and the trail over the marsh was told only to a few.

Meantime it had fared hard with the fugitives. Their nearness to the
settlement prevented them from lighting a fire, which might have revealed
their hiding-place, and they crept together, shivering all night in a
clump of hazel. Scared thence by passing but unsuspecting wayfarers
wandering off the trail, they lay part of the next day and night amid some
tussocks of salt grass, blown on by the cold sea-breeze; chilled, but
securely hidden from sight. Indeed, thanks to some mysterious power they
had of utter immobility, it was wonderful how they could efface
themselves, through quiet and the simplest environment. The lee side of a
straggling vine in the meadow, or even the thin ridge of cast-up drift on
the shore, behind which they would lie for hours motionless, was a
sufficient barrier against prying eyes. In this occupation they no longer
talked together, but followed each other with the blind instinct of
animals—yet always unerringly, as if conscious of each other’s
plans. Strangely enough, it was the REAL animal alone—their nameless
dog—who now betrayed impatience and a certain human infirmity of
temper. The concealment they were resigned to, the sufferings they mutely
accepted, he alone resented! When certain scents or sounds, imperceptible
to their senses, were blown across their path, he would, with bristling
back, snarl himself into guttural and strangulated fury. Yet, in their
apathy, even this would have passed them unnoticed, but that on the second
night he disappeared suddenly, returning after two hours’ absence with
bloody jaws—replete, but still slinking and snappish. It was only in
the morning that, creeping on their hands and knees through the stubble,
they came upon the torn and mangled carcass of a sheep. The two men looked
at each other without speaking—they knew what this act of rapine
meant to themselves. It meant a fresh hue and cry after them—it
meant that their starving companion had helped to draw the net closer
round them. The Indian grunted, Li Tee smiled vacantly; but with their
knives and fingers they finished what the dog had begun, and became
equally culpable. But that they were heathens, they could not have
achieved a delicate ethical responsibility in a more Christian-like way.

Yet the rice-fed Li Tee suffered most in their privations. His habitual
apathy increased with a certain physical lethargy which Jim could not
understand. When they were apart he sometimes found Li Tee stretched on
his back with an odd stare in his eyes, and once, at a distance, he
thought he saw a vague thin vapor drift from where the Chinese boy was
lying and vanish as he approached. When he tried to arouse him there was a
weak drawl in his voice and a drug-like odor in his breath. Jim dragged
him to a more substantial shelter, a thicket of alder. It was dangerously
near the frequented road, but a vague idea had sprung up in Jim’s now
troubled mind that, equal vagabonds though they were, Li Tee had more
claims upon civilization, through those of his own race who were permitted
to live among the white men, and were not hunted to “reservations” and
confined there like Jim’s people. If Li Tee was “heap sick,” other
Chinamen might find and nurse him. As for Li Tee, he had lately said, in a
more lucid interval: “Me go dead—allee samee Mellikan boy. You go
dead too—allee samee,” and then lay down again with a glassy stare
in his eyes. Far from being frightened at this, Jim attributed his
condition to some enchantment that Li Tee had evoked from one of his gods—just
as he himself had seen “medicine-men” of his own tribe fall into strange
trances, and was glad that the boy no longer suffered. The day advanced,
and Li Tee still slept. Jim could hear the church bells ringing; he knew
it was Sunday—the day on which he was hustled from the main street
by the constable; the day on which the shops were closed, and the drinking
saloons open only at the back door. The day whereon no man worked—and
for that reason, though he knew it not, the day selected by the ingenious
Mr. Skinner and a few friends as especially fitting and convenient for a
chase of the fugitives. The bell brought no suggestion of this—though
the dog snapped under his breath and stiffened his spine. And then he
heard another sound, far off and vague, yet one that brought a flash into
his murky eye, that lit up the heaviness of his Hebraic face, and even
showed a slight color in his high cheek-bones. He lay down on the ground,
and listened with suspended breath. He heard it now distinctly. It was the
Boston boy calling, and the word he was calling was “Jim.”

Then the fire dropped out of his eyes as he turned with his usual
stolidity to where Li Tee was lying. Him he shook, saying briefly: “Boston
boy come back!” But there was no reply, the dead body rolled over inertly
under his hand; the head fell back, and the jaw dropped under the pinched
yellow face. The Indian gazed at him slowly, and then gravely turned again
in the direction of the voice. Yet his dull mind was perplexed, for,
blended with that voice were other sounds like the tread of clumsily
stealthy feet. But again the voice called “Jim!” and raising his hands to
his lips he gave a low whoop in reply. This was followed by silence, when
suddenly he heard the voice—the boy’s voice—once again, this
time very near him, saying eagerly:—

“There he is!”

Then the Indian knew all. His face, however, did not change as he took up
his gun, and a man stepped out of the thicket into the trail:—

“Drop that gun, you d——d Injin.”

The Indian did not move.

“Drop it, I say!”

The Indian remained erect and motionless.

A rifle shot broke from the thicket. At first it seemed to have missed the
Indian, and the man who had spoken cocked his own rifle. But the next
moment the tall figure of Jim collapsed where he stood into a mere
blanketed heap.

The man who had fired the shot walked towards the heap with the easy air
of a conqueror. But suddenly there arose before him an awful phantom, the
incarnation of savagery—a creature of blazing eyeballs, flashing
tusks, and hot carnivorous breath. He had barely time to cry out “A wolf!”
before its jaws met in his throat, and they rolled together on the ground.

But it was no wolf—as a second shot proved—only Jim’s slinking
dog; the only one of the outcasts who at that supreme moment had gone back
to his original nature.

A VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN

Mr. Jackson Potter halted before the little cottage, half shop, half
hostelry, opposite the great gates of Domesday Park, where tickets of
admission to that venerable domain were sold. Here Mr. Potter revealed his
nationality as a Western American, not only in his accent, but in a
certain half-humorous, half-practical questioning of the ticket-seller—as
that quasi-official stamped his ticket—which was nevertheless
delivered with such unfailing good-humor, and such frank suggestiveness of
the perfect equality of the ticket-seller and the well-dressed stranger
that, far from producing any irritation, it attracted the pleased
attention not only of the official, but his wife and daughter and a
customer. Possibly the good looks of the stranger had something to do with
it. Jackson Potter was a singularly handsome young fellow, with one of
those ideal faces and figures sometimes seen in Western frontier villages,
attributable to no ancestor, but evolved possibly from novels and books
devoured by ancestresses in the long solitary winter evenings of their
lonely cabins on the frontier. A beardless, classical head, covered by
short flocculent blonde curls, poised on a shapely neck and shoulders, was
more Greek in outline than suggestive of any ordinary American type.
Finally, after having thoroughly amused his small audience, he lifted his
straw hat to the “ladies,” and lounged out across the road to the gateway.
Here he paused, consulting his guide-book, and read aloud: “St. John’s
gateway. This massive structure, according to Leland, was built in”—murmured—“never
mind when; we’ll pass St. John,” marked the page with his pencil, and
tendering his ticket to the gate-keeper, heard, with some satisfaction,
that, as there were no other visitors just then, and as the cicerone only
accompanied PARTIES, he would be left to himself, and at once plunged into
a by-path.

It was that loveliest of rare creations—a hot summer day in England,
with all the dampness of that sea-blown isle wrung out of it, exhaled in
the quivering blue vault overhead, or passing as dim wraiths in the
distant wood, and all the long-matured growth of that great old garden
vivified and made resplendent by the fervid sun. The ashes of dead and
gone harvests, even the dust of those who had for ages wrought in it,
turned again and again through incessant cultivation, seemed to move and
live once more in that present sunshine. All color appeared to be deepened
and mellowed, until even the very shadows of the trees were as velvety as
the sward they fell upon. The prairie-bred Potter, accustomed to the
youthful caprices and extravagances of his own virgin soil, could not help
feeling the influence of the ripe restraints of this.

As he glanced through the leaves across green sunlit spaces to the
ivy-clad ruins of Domesday Abbey, which seemed itself a growth of the very
soil, he murmured to himself: “Things had been made mighty comfortable for
folks here, you bet!” Forgotten books he had read as a boy, scraps of
school histories, or rarer novels, came back to him as he walked along,
and peopled the solitude about him with their heroes.

Nevertheless, it was unmistakably hot—a heat homelike in its
intensity, yet of a different effect, throwing him into languid reverie
rather than filling his veins with fire. Secure in his seclusion in the
leafy chase, he took off his jacket and rambled on in his shirt sleeves.
Through the opening he presently saw the abbey again, with the restored
wing where the noble owner lived for two or three weeks in the year, but
now given over to the prevailing solitude. And then, issuing from the
chase, he came upon a broad, moss-grown terrace. Before him stretched a
tangled and luxuriant wilderness of shrubs and flowers, darkened by
cypress and cedars of Lebanon; its dun depths illuminated by dazzling
white statues, vases, trellises, and paved paths, choked and lost in the
trailing growths of years of abandonment and forgetfulness. He consulted
his guide-book again. It was the “old Italian garden,” constructed under
the design of a famous Italian gardener by the third duke; but its studied
formality being displeasing to his successor, it was allowed to fall into
picturesque decay and negligent profusion, which were not, however,
disturbed by later descendants,—a fact deplored by the artistic
writer of the guide-book, who mournfully called attention to the rare
beauty of the marble statues, urns, and fountains, ruined by neglect,
although one or two of the rarer objects had been removed to Deep Dene
Lodge, another seat of the present duke.

It is needless to say that Mr. Potter conceived at once a humorous
opposition to the artistic enthusiasm of the critic, and, plunging into
the garden, took a mischievous delight in its wildness and the victorious
struggle of nature with the formality of art. At every step through the
tangled labyrinth he could see where precision and order had been invaded,
and even the rigid masonry broken or upheaved by the rebellious force. Yet
here and there the two powers had combined to offer an example of beauty
neither could have effected alone. A passion vine had overrun and
enclasped a vase with a perfect symmetry no sculptor could have achieved.
A heavy balustrade was made ethereal with a delicate fretwork of
vegetation between its balusters like lace. Here, however, the lap and
gurgle of water fell gratefully upon the ear of the perspiring and thirsty
Mr. Potter, and turned his attention to more material things. Following
the sound, he presently came upon an enormous oblong marble basin
containing three time-worn fountains with grouped figures. The pipes were
empty, silent, and choked with reeds and water plants, but the great basin
itself was filled with water from some invisible source.

A terraced walk occupied one side of the long parallelogram; at intervals
and along the opposite bank, half shadowed by willows, tinted marble
figures of tritons, fauns, and dryads arose half hidden in the reeds. They
were more or less mutilated by time, and here and there only the empty,
moss-covered plinths that had once supported them could be seen. But they
were so lifelike in their subdued color in the shade that he was for a
moment startled.

The water looked deliciously cool. An audacious thought struck him. He was
alone, and the place was a secluded one. He knew there were no other
visitors; the marble basin was quite hidden from the rest of the garden,
and approached only from the path by which he had come, and whose entire
view he commanded. He quietly and deliberately undressed himself under the
willows, and unhesitatingly plunged into the basin. The water was four or
five feet deep, and its extreme length afforded an excellent swimming
bath, despite the water-lilies and a few aquatic plants that mottled its
clear surface, or the sedge that clung to the bases of the statues. He
disported for some moments in the delicious element, and then seated
himself upon one of the half-submerged plinths, almost hidden by reeds,
that had once upheld a river god. Here, lazily resting himself upon his
elbow, half his body still below the water, his quick ear was suddenly
startled by a rustling noise and the sound of footsteps. For a moment he
was inclined to doubt his senses; he could see only the empty path before
him and the deserted terrace. But the sound became more distinct, and to
his great uneasiness appeared to come from the OTHER side of the fringe of
willows, where there was undoubtedly a path to the fountain which he had
overlooked. His clothes were under those willows, but he was at least
twenty yards from the bank and an equal distance from the terrace. He was
about to slip beneath the water when, to his crowning horror, before he
could do so, a young girl slowly appeared from the hidden willow path full
upon the terrace. She was walking leisurely with a parasol over her head
and a book in her hand. Even in his intense consternation her whole figure—a
charming one in its white dress, sailor hat, and tan shoes—was
imprinted on his memory as she instinctively halted to look upon the
fountain, evidently an unexpected surprise to her.

A sudden idea flashed upon him. She was at least sixty yards away; he was
half hidden in the reeds and well in the long shadows of the willows. If
he remained perfectly motionless she might overlook him at that distance,
or take him for one of the statues. He remembered also that as he was
resting on his elbow, his half-submerged body lying on the plinth below
water, he was somewhat in the attitude of one of the river gods. And there
was no other escape. If he dived he might not be able to keep under water
as long as she remained, and any movement he knew would betray him. He
stiffened himself and scarcely breathed. Luckily for him his attitude had
been a natural one and easy to keep. It was well, too, for she was
evidently in no hurry and walked slowly, stopping from time to time to
admire the basin and its figures. Suddenly he was instinctively aware that
she was looking towards him and even changing her position, moving her
pretty head and shading her eyes with her hand as if for a better view. He
remained motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. Yet there was something
so innocently frank and undisturbed in her observation, that he knew as
instinctively that she suspected nothing, and took him for a
half-submerged statue. He breathed more freely. But presently she stopped,
glanced around her, and, keeping her eyes fixed in his direction, began to
walk backwards slowly until she reached a stone balustrade behind her. On
this she leaped, and, sitting down, opened in her lap the sketch-book she
was carrying, and, taking out a pencil, to his horror began to sketch!

For a wild moment he recurred to his first idea of diving and swimming at
all hazards to the bank, but the conviction that now his slightest
movement must be detected held him motionless. He must save her the
mortification of knowing she was sketching a living man, if he died for
it. She sketched rapidly but fixedly and absorbedly, evidently forgetting
all else in her work. From time to time she held out her sketch before her
to compare it with her subject. Yet the seconds seemed minutes and the
minutes hours. Suddenly, to his great relief, a distant voice was heard
calling “Lottie.” It was a woman’s voice; by its accent it also seemed to
him an American one.

The young girl made a slight movement of impatience, but did not look up,
and her pencil moved still more rapidly. Again the voice called, this time
nearer. The young girl’s pencil fairly flew over the paper, as, still
without looking up, she lifted a pretty voice and answered back,
“Y-e-e-s!”

It struck him that her accent was also that of a compatriot.

“Where on earth are you?” continued the first voice, which now appeared to
come from the other side of the willows on the path by which the young
girl had approached. “Here, aunty,” replied the girl, closing her
sketch-book with a snap and starting to her feet.

A stout woman, fashionably dressed, made her appearance from the willow
path.

“What have you been doing all this while?” she said querulously. “Not
sketching, I hope,” she added, with a suspicious glance at the book. “You
know your professor expressly forbade you to do so in your holidays.”

The young girl shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been looking at the
fountains,” she replied evasively.

“And horrid looking pagan things they are, too,” said the elder woman,
turning from them disgustedly, without vouchsafing a second glance. “Come.
If we expect to do the abbey, we must hurry up, or we won’t catch the
train. Your uncle is waiting for us at the top of the garden.”

And, to Potter’s intense relief, she grasped the young girl’s arm and
hurried her away, their figures the next moment vanishing in the tangled
shrubbery.

Potter lost no time in plunging with his cramped limbs into the water and
regaining the other side. Here he quickly half dried himself with some
sun-warmed leaves and baked mosses, hurried on his clothes, and hastened
off in the opposite direction to the path taken by them, yet with such
circuitous skill and speed that he reached the great gateway without
encountering anybody. A brisk walk brought him to the station in time to
catch a stopping train, and in half an hour he was speeding miles away
from Domesday Park and his half-forgotten episode.

Meantime the two ladies continued on their way to the abbey. “I don’t see
why I mayn’t sketch things I see about me,” said the young lady
impatiently. “Of course, I understand that I must go through the
rudimentary drudgery of my art and study from casts, and learn
perspective, and all that; but I can’t see what’s the difference between
working in a stuffy studio over a hand or arm that I know is only a STUDY,
and sketching a full or half length in the open air with the wonderful
illusion of light and shade and distance—and grouping and combining
them all—that one knows and feels makes a picture. The real picture
one makes is already in one’s self.”

“For goodness’ sake, Lottie, don’t go on again with your usual
absurdities. Since you are bent on being an artist, and your Popper has
consented and put you under the most expensive master in Paris, the least
you can do is to follow the rules. And I dare say he only wanted you to
‘sink the shop’ in company. It’s such horrid bad form for you artistic
people to be always dragging out your sketch-books. What would you say if
your Popper came over here, and began to examine every lady’s dress in
society to see what material it was, just because he was a big dry-goods
dealer in America?”

The young girl, accustomed to her aunt’s extravagances, made no reply. But
that night she consulted her sketch, and was so far convinced of her own
instincts, and the profound impression the fountain had made upon her,
that she was enabled to secretly finish her interrupted sketch from
memory. For Miss Charlotte Forrest was a born artist, and in no mere
caprice had persuaded her father to let her adopt the profession, and
accepted the drudgery of a novitiate. She looked earnestly upon this first
real work of her hand and found it good! Still, it was but a pencil
sketch, and wanted the vivification of color.

When she returned to Paris she began—still secretly—a larger
study in oils. She worked upon it in her own room every moment she could
spare from her studio practice, unknown to her professor. It absorbed her
existence; she grew thin and pale. When it was finished, and only then,
she showed it tremblingly to her master. He stood silent, in profound
astonishment. The easel before him showed a foreground of tangled
luxuriance, from which stretched a sheet of water like a darkened mirror,
while through parted reeds on its glossy surface arose the half-submerged
figure of a river god, exquisite in contour, yet whose delicate outlines
were almost a vision by the crowning illusion of light, shadow, and
atmosphere.

“It is a beautiful copy, mademoiselle, and I forgive you breaking my
rules,” he said, drawing a long breath. “But I cannot now recall the
original picture.”

“It’s no copy of a picture, professor,” said the young girl timidly, and
she disclosed her secret. “It was the only perfect statue there,” she
added diffidently; “but I think it wanted—something.”

“True,” said the professor abstractedly. “Where the elbow rests there
should be a half-inverted urn flowing with water; but the drawing of that
shoulder is so perfect—as is YOUR study of it—that one guesses
the missing forearm one cannot see, which clasped it. Beautiful!
beautiful!”

Suddenly he stopped, and turned his eyes almost searchingly on hers.

“You say you have never drawn from the human model, mademoiselle?”

“Never,” said the young girl innocently.

“True,” murmured the professor again. “These are the classic ideal
measurements. There are no limbs like those now. Yet it is wonderful! And
this gem, you say, is in England?”

“Yes.”

“Good! I am going there in a few days. I shall make a pilgrimage to see
it. Until then, mademoiselle, I beg you to break as many of my rules as
you like.”

Three weeks later she found the professor one morning standing before her
picture in her private studio. “You have returned from England,” she said
joyfully.

“I have,” said the professor gravely.

“You have seen the original subject?” she said timidly.

“I have NOT. I have not seen it, mademoiselle,” he said, gazing at her
mildly through his glasses, “because it does not exist, and never
existed.”

The young girl turned pale.

“Listen. I have go to England. I arrive at the Park of Domesday. I
penetrate the beautiful, wild garden. I approach the fountain. I see the
wonderful water, the exquisite light and shade, the lilies, the mysterious
reeds—beautiful, yet not as beautiful as you have made it,
mademoiselle, but no statue—no river god! I demand it of the
concierge. He knows of it absolutely nothing. I transport myself to the
noble proprietor, Monsieur le Duc, at a distant chateau where he has
collected the ruined marbles. It is not there.”

“Yet I saw it,” said the young girl earnestly, yet with a troubled face.
“O professor,” she burst out appealingly, “what do you think it was?”

“I think, mademoiselle,” said the professor gravely, “that you created it.
Believe me, it is a function of genius! More, it is a proof, a necessity!
You saw the beautiful lake, the ruined fountain, the soft shadows, the
empty plinth, curtained by reeds. You yourself say you feel there was
‘something wanting.’ Unconsciously you yourself supplied it. All that you
had ever dreamt of mythology, all that you had ever seen of statuary,
thronged upon you at that supreme moment, and, evolved from your own
fancy, the river god was born. It is your own, chere enfant, as much the
offspring of your genius as the exquisite atmosphere you have caught, the
charm of light and shadow that you have brought away. Accept my
felicitations. You have little more to learn of me.”

As he bowed himself out and descended the stairs he shrugged his shoulders
slightly. “She is an adorable genius,” he murmured. “Yet she is also a
woman. Being a woman, naturally she has a lover—this river god! Why
not?”

The extraordinary success of Miss Forrest’s picture and the instantaneous
recognition of her merit as an artist, apart from her novel subject,
perhaps went further to remove her uneasiness than any serious conviction
of the professor’s theory. Nevertheless, it appealed to her poetic and
mystic imagination, and although other subjects from her brush met with
equally phenomenal success, and she was able in a year to return to
America with a reputation assured beyond criticism, she never entirely
forgot the strange incident connected with her initial effort.

And by degrees a singular change came over her. Rich, famous, and
attractive, she began to experience a sentimental and romantic interest in
that episode. Once, when reproached by her friends for her indifference to
her admirers, she had half laughingly replied that she had once found her
“ideal,” but never would again. Yet the jest had scarcely passed her lips
before she became pale and silent. With this change came also a desire to
re-purchase the picture, which she had sold in her early success to a
speculative American picture-dealer. On inquiry she found, alas! that it
had been sold only a day or two before to a Chicago gentleman, of the name
of Potter, who had taken a fancy to it.

Miss Forrest curled her pretty lip, but, nothing daunted, resolved to
effect her purpose, and sought the purchaser at his hotel. She was ushered
into a private drawing-room, where, on a handsome easel, stood the newly
acquired purchase. Mr. Potter was out, “but would return in a moment.”

Miss Forrest was relieved, for, alone and undisturbed, she could now let
her full soul go out to her romantic creation. As she stood there, she
felt the glamour of the old English garden come back to her, the play of
light and shadow, the silent pool, the godlike face and bust, with its
cast-down, meditative eyes, seen through the parted reeds. She clasped her
hands silently before her. Should she never see it again as then?

Mr. Potter was touched, but a master of himself. As she came to, he said
quietly: “I came upon you suddenly—as you stood entranced by this
picture—just as I did when I first saw it. That’s why I bought it.
Are you any relative of the Miss Forrest who painted it?” he continued,
quietly looking at her card, which he held in his hand.

Miss Forrest recovered herself sufficiently to reply, and stated her
business with some dignity.

“Ah,” said Mr. Potter, “THAT is another question. You see, the picture has
a special value to me, as I once saw an old-fashioned garden like that in
England. But that chap there,—I beg your pardon, I mean that figure,—I
fancy, is your own creation, entirely. However, I’ll think over your
proposition, and if you will allow me I’ll call and see you about it.”

Mr. Potter did call—not once, but many times—and showed quite
a remarkable interest in Miss Forrest’s art. The question of the sale of
the picture, however, remained in abeyance. A few weeks later, after a
longer call than usual, Mr. Potter said:—

“Don’t you think the best thing we can do is to make a kind of compromise,
and let us own the picture together?”

And they did.

A ROMANCE OF THE LINE

As the train moved slowly out of the station, the Writer of Stories looked
up wearily from the illustrated pages of the magazines and weeklies on his
lap to the illustrated advertisements on the walls of the station sliding
past his carriage windows. It was getting to be monotonous. For a while he
had been hopefully interested in the bustle of the departing trains, and
looked up from his comfortable and early invested position to the later
comers with that sense of superiority common to travelers; had watched the
conventional leave-takings—always feebly prolonged to the uneasiness
of both parties—and contrasted it with the impassive business
promptitude of the railway officials; but it was the old experience
repeated. Falling back on the illustrated advertisements again, he
wondered if their perpetual recurrence at every station would not at last
bring to the tired traveler the loathing of satiety; whether the passenger
in railway carriages, continually offered Somebody’s oats, inks, washing
blue, candles, and soap, apparently as a necessary equipment for a few
hours’ journey, would not there and thereafter forever ignore the use of
these articles, or recoil from that particular quality. Or, as an unbiased
observer, he wondered if, on the other hand, impressible passengers, after
passing three or four stations, had ever leaped from the train and refused
to proceed further until they were supplied with one or more of those
articles. Had he ever known any one who confided to him in a moment of
expansiveness that he had dated his use of Somebody’s soap to an
advertisement persistently borne upon him through the medium of a railway
carriage window? No! Would he not have connected that man with that other
certifying individual who always appends a name and address singularly
obscure and unconvincing, yet who, at some supreme moment, recommends
Somebody’s pills to a dying friend,—afflicted with a similar
address,—which restore him to life and undying obscurity. Yet these
pictorial and literary appeals must have a potency independent of the
wares they advertise, or they wouldn’t be there.

Perhaps he was the more sensitive to this monotony as he was just then
seeking change and novelty in order to write a new story. He was not
looking for material,—his subjects were usually the same,—he
was merely hoping for that relaxation and diversion which should freshen
and fit him for later concentration. Still, he had often heard of the odd
circumstances to which his craft were sometimes indebted for suggestion.
The invasion of an eccentric-looking individual—probably an innocent
tradesman into a railway carriage had given the hint for “A Night with a
Lunatic;” a nervously excited and belated passenger had once unconsciously
sat for an escaped forger; the picking up of a forgotten novel in the
rack, with passages marked in pencil, had afforded the plot of a love
story; or the germ of a romance had been found in an obscure news
paragraph which, under less listless moments, would have passed unread. On
the other hand, he recalled these inconvenient and inconsistent moments
from which the so-called “inspiration” sprang, the utter incongruity of
time and place in some brilliant conception, and wondered if sheer vacuity
of mind were really so favorable.

Going back to his magazine again, he began to get mildly interested in a
story. Turning the page, however, he was confronted by a pictorial
advertising leaflet inserted between the pages, yet so artistic in
character that it might have been easily mistaken for an illustration of
the story he was reading, and perhaps was not more remote or obscure in
reference than many he had known. But the next moment he recognized with
despair that it was only a smaller copy of one he had seen on the hoarding
at the last station. He threw the leaflet aside, but the flavor of the
story was gone. The peerless detergent of the advertisement had erased it
from the tablets of his memory. He leaned back in his seat again, and
lazily watched the flying suburbs. Here were the usual promising open
spaces and patches of green, quickly succeeded again by solid blocks of
houses whose rear windows gave directly upon the line, yet seldom showed
an inquisitive face—even of a wondering child. It was a strange
revelation of the depressing effects of familiarity. Expresses might
thunder by, goods trains drag their slow length along, shunting trains
pipe all day beneath their windows, but the tenants heeded them not. Here,
too, was the junction, with its labyrinthine interlacing of tracks that
dazed the tired brain; the overburdened telegraph posts, that looked as if
they really could not stand another wire; the long lines of empty,
homeless, and deserted trains in sidings that had seen better days; the
idle trains, with staring vacant windows, which were eventually seized by
a pert engine hissing, “Come along, will you?” and departed with a
discontented grunt from every individual carriage coupling; the racing
trains, that suddenly appeared parallel with one’s carriage windows, begot
false hopes of a challenge of speed, and then, without warning, drew
contemptuously and, superciliously away; the swift eclipse of everything
in a tunneled bridge; the long, slithering passage of an “up” express, and
then the flash of a station, incoherent and unintelligible with pictorial
advertisements again.

He closed his eyes to concentrate his thought, and by degrees a pleasant
languor stole over him. The train had by this time attained that rate of
speed which gave it a slight swing and roll on curves and switches not
unlike the rocking of a cradle. Once or twice he opened his eyes sleepily
upon the waltzing trees in the double planes of distance, and again closed
them. Then, in one of these slight oscillations, he felt himself
ridiculously slipping into slumber, and awoke with some indignation.
Another station was passed, in which process the pictorial advertisements
on the hoardings and the pictures in his lap seemed to have become jumbled
up, confused, and to dance before him, and then suddenly and strangely,
without warning, the train stopped short—at ANOTHER station. And
then he arose, and—what five minutes before he never conceived of
doing—gathered his papers and slipped from the carriage to the
platform. When I say “he” I mean, of course, the Writer of Stories; yet
the man who slipped out was half his age and a different-looking person.

The change from the motion of the train—for it seemed that he had
been traveling several hours—to the firmer platform for a moment
bewildered him. The station looked strange, and he fancied it lacked a
certain kind of distinctness. But that quality was also noticeable in the
porters and loungers on the platform. He thought it singular, until it
seemed to him that they were not characteristic, nor in any way important
or necessary to the business he had in hand. Then, with an effort, he
tried to remember himself and his purpose, and made his way through the
station to the open road beyond. A van, bearing the inscription, “Removals
to Town and Country,” stood before him and blocked his way, but a dogcart
was in waiting, and a grizzled groom, who held the reins, touched his hat
respectfully. Although still dazed by his journey and uncertain of
himself, he seemed to recognize in the man that distinctive character
which was wanting in the others. The correctness of his surmise was
revealed a few moments later, when, after he had taken his seat beside
him, and they were rattling out of the village street, the man turned
towards him and said:—

“Tha’ll know Sir Jarge?”

“I do not,” said the young man.

“Ay! but theer’s many as cooms here as doan’t, for all they cooms. Tha’ll
say it ill becooms mea as war man and boy in Sir Jarge’s sarvice for fifty
year, to say owt agen him, but I’m here to do it, or they couldn’t foolfil
their business. Tha wast to ax me questions about Sir Jarge and the
Grange, and I wor to answer soa as to make tha think thar was suthing
wrong wi’ un. Howbut I may save tha time and tell thea downroight that Sir
Jarge forged his uncle’s will, and so gotten the Grange. That ‘ee keeps
his niece in mortal fear o’ he. That tha’ll be put in haunted chamber wi’
a boggle.”

“I think,” said the young man hesitatingly, “that there must be some
mistake. I do not know any Sir George, and I am NOT going to the Grange.”

“Eay! Then thee aren’t the ‘ero sent down from London by the story
writer?”

“Not by THAT one,” said the young man diffidently.

The old man’s face changed. It was no mere figure of speech: it actually
was ANOTHER face that looked down upon the traveler.

“Then mayhap your honor will be bespoken at the Angel’s Inn,” he said,
with an entirely distinct and older dialect, “and a finer hostel for a
young gentleman of your condition ye’ll not find on this side of Oxford. A
fair chamber, looking to the sun; sheets smelling of lavender from Dame
Margery’s own store, and, for the matter of that, spread by the fair hands
of Maudlin, her daughter—the best favored lass that ever danced
under a Maypole. Ha! have at ye there, young sir! Not to speak of the
October ale of old Gregory, her father—ay, nor the rare Hollands,
that never paid excise duties to the king.”

“I’m afraid,” said the young traveler timidly, “there’s over a century
between us. There’s really some mistake.”

“What?” said the groom, “ye are NOT the young spark who is to marry
Mistress Amy at the Hall, yet makes a pother and mess of it all by a duel
with Sir Roger de Cadgerly, the wicked baronet, for his over-free
discourse with our fair Maudlin this very eve? Ye are NOT the traveler
whose post-chaise is now at the Falcon? Ye are not he that was bespoken by
the story writer in London?”

“I don’t think I am,” said the young man apologetically. “Indeed, as I am
feeling far from well, I think I’ll get out and walk.”

He got down—the vehicle and driver vanished in the distance. It did
not surprise him. “I must collect my thoughts,” he said. He did so.
Possibly the collection was not large, for presently he said, with a sigh
of relief:—

“I see it all now! My name is Paul Bunker. I am of the young branch of an
old Quaker family, rich and respected in the country, and I am on a visit
to my ancestral home. But I have lived since a child in America, and am
alien to the traditions and customs of the old country, and even of the
seat to which my fathers belong. I have brought with me from the far West
many peculiarities of speech and thought that may startle my kinsfolk. But
I certainly shall not address my uncle as ‘Hoss!’ nor shall I say ‘guess’
oftener than is necessary.”

Much brightened and refreshed by his settled identity, he had time, as he
walked briskly along, to notice the scenery, which was certainly varied
and conflicting in character, and quite inconsistent with his preconceived
notions of an English landscape. On his right, a lake of the brightest
cobalt blue stretched before a many-towered and terraced town, which was
relieved by a background of luxuriant foliage and emerald-green mountains;
on his left arose a rugged mountain, which he was surprised to see was
snow-capped, albeit a tunnel was observable midway of its height, and a
train just issuing from it. Almost regretting that he had not continued on
his journey, as he was fully sensible that it was in some way connected
with the railway he had quitted, presently his attention was directed to
the gateway of a handsome park, whose mansion was faintly seen in the
distance. Hurrying towards him, down the avenue of limes, was a strange
figure. It was that of a man of middle age; clad in Quaker garb, yet with
an extravagance of cut and detail which seemed antiquated even for
England. He had evidently seen the young man approaching, and his face was
beaming with welcome. If Paul had doubted that it was his uncle, the first
words he spoke would have reassured him.

“Welcome to Hawthorn Hall,” said the figure, grasping his hand heartily,
“but thee will excuse me if I do not tarry with thee long at present, for
I am hastening, even now, with some nourishing and sustaining food for
Giles Hayward, a farm laborer.” He pointed to a package he was carrying.
“But thee will find thy cousins Jane and Dorcas Bunker taking tea in the
summer-house. Go to them! Nay—positively—I may not linger, but
will return to thee quickly.” And, to Paul’s astonishment, he trotted away
on his sturdy, respectable legs, still beaming and carrying his package in
his hand.

“Well, I’ll be dog-goned! but the old man ain’t going to be left, you
bet!” he ejaculated, suddenly remembering his dialect. “He’ll get there,
whether school keeps or not!” Then, reflecting that no one heard him, he
added simply, “He certainly was not over civil towards the nephew he has
never seen before. And those girls—whom I don’t know! How very
awkward!”

Nevertheless, he continued his way up the avenue towards the mansion. The
park was beautifully kept. Remembering the native wildness and virgin
seclusion of the Western forest, he could not help contrasting it with the
conservative gardening of this pretty woodland, every rood of which had
been patrolled by keepers and rangers, and preserved and fostered hundreds
of years before he was born, until warmed for human occupancy. At times
the avenue was crossed by grass drives, where the original woodland had
been displaced, not by the exigency of a “clearing” for tillage, as in his
own West, but for the leisurely pleasure of the owner. Then, a few hundred
yards from the house itself,—a quaint Jacobean mansion,—he
came to an open space where the sylvan landscape had yielded to floral
cultivation, and so fell upon a charming summer-house, or arbor, embowered
with roses. It must have been the one of which his uncle had spoken, for
there, to his wondering admiration, sat two little maids before a rustic
table, drinking tea demurely, yes, with all the evident delight of a
childish escapade from their elders. While in the picturesque quaintness
of their attire there was still a formal suggestion of the sect to which
their father belonged, their summer frocks—differing in color, yet
each of the same subdued tint—were alike in cut and fashion, and
short enough to show their dainty feet in prim slippers and silken hose
that matched their frocks. As the afternoon sun glanced through the leaves
upon their pink cheeks, tied up in quaint hats by ribbons under their
chins, they made a charming picture. At least Paul thought so as he
advanced towards them, hat in hand. They looked up at his approach, but
again cast down their eyes with demure shyness; yet he fancied that they
first exchanged glances with each other, full of mischievous intelligence.

“I am your cousin Paul,” he said smilingly, “though I am afraid I am
introducing myself almost as briefly as your father just now excused
himself to me. He told me I would find you here, but he himself was
hastening on a Samaritan mission.”

“With a box in his hand?” said the girls simultaneously, exchanging
glances with each other again.

“With a box containing some restorative, I think,” responded Paul, a
little wonderingly.

“Restorative! So THAT’S what he calls it now, is it?” said one of the
girls saucily. “Well, no one knows what’s in the box, though he always
carries it with him. Thee never sees him without it”—

“And a roll of paper,” suggested the other girl.

“Yes, a roll of paper—but one never knows what it is!” said the
first speaker. “It’s very strange. But no matter now, Paul. Welcome to
Hawthorn Hall. I am Jane Bunker, and this is Dorcas.” She stopped, and
then, looking down demurely, added, “Thee may kiss us both, cousin Paul.”

The young man did not wait for a second invitation, but gently touched his
lips to their soft young cheeks.

“Thee does not speak like an American, Paul. Is thee really and truly
one?” continued Jane.

Paul remembered that he had forgotten his dialect, but it was too late
now.

“I am really and truly one, and your own cousin, and I hope you will find
me a very dear”—

“Oh!” said Dorcas, starting up primly. “You must really allow me to
withdraw.” To the young man’s astonishment, she seized her parasol, and,
with a youthful affectation of dignity, glided from the summer-house and
was lost among the trees.

“Thy declaration to me was rather sudden,” said Jane quietly, in answer to
his look of surprise, “and Dorcas is peculiarly sensitive and less like
the ‘world’s people’ than I am. And it was just a little cruel,
considering that she has loved thee secretly all these years, followed thy
fortunes in America with breathless eagerness, thrilled at thy narrow
escapes, and wept at thy privations.”

“But she has never seen me before!” said the astounded Paul.

“And thee had never seen me before, and yet thee has dared to propose to
me five minutes after thee arrived, and in her presence.”

“But, my dear girl!” expostulated Paul.

“Stand off!” she said, rapidly opening her parasol and interposing it
between them. “Another step nearer—ay, even another word of
endearment—and I shall be compelled—nay, forced,” she added in
a lower voice, “to remove this parasol, lest it should be crushed and
ruined!”

“I see,” he said gloomily, “you have been reading novels; but so have I,
and the same ones! Nevertheless, I intended only to tell you that I hoped
you would always find me a kind friend.”

She shut her parasol up with a snap. “And I only intended to tell thee
that my heart was given to another.”

“You INTENDED—and now?”

“Is it the ‘kind friend’ who asks?”

“If it were not?”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!”

“Oh!”

“But thee loves another?” she said, toying with her cup.

He attempted to toy with his, but broke it. A man lacks delicacy in this
kind of persiflage. “You mean I am loved by another,” he said bluntly.

“You dare to say that!” she said, flashing, in spite of her prim demeanor.

“No, but YOU did just now! You said your sister loved me!”

“Did I?” she said dreamily. “Dear! dear! That’s the trouble of trying to
talk like Mr. Blank’s delightful dialogues. One gets so mixed!”

“Yet you will be a sister to me?” he said. “‘Tis an old American joke, but
‘twill serve.”

There was a long silence.

“Had thee not better go to sister Dorcas? She is playing with the cows,”
said Jane plaintively.

“You forget,” he returned gravely, “that, on page 27 of the novel we have
both read, at this point he is supposed to kiss her.”

She had forgotten, but they both remembered in time. At this moment a
scream came faintly from the distance. They both started, and rose.

“It is sister Dorcas,” said Jane, sitting down again and pouring out
another cup of tea. “I have always told her that one of those Swiss cows
would hook her.”

Paul stared at her with a strange revulsion of feeling. “I could save
Dorcas,” he muttered to himself, “in less time than it takes to describe.”
He paused, however, as he reflected that this would depend entirely upon
the methods of the writer of this description. “I could rescue her! I have
only to take the first clothes-line that I find, and with that knowledge
and skill with the lasso which I learned in the wilds of America, I could
stop the charge of the most furious ruminant. I will!” and without another
word he turned and rushed off in the direction of the sound.

He had not gone a hundred yards before he paused, a little bewildered. To
the left could still be seen the cobalt lake with the terraced background;
to the right the rugged mountains. He chose the latter. Luckily for him a
cottager’s garden lay in his path, and from a line supported by a single
pole depended the homely linen of the cottager. To tear these garments
from the line was the work of a moment (although it represented the whole
week’s washing), and hastily coiling the rope dexterously in his hand, he
sped onward. Already panting with exertion and excitement, a few roods
farther he was confronted with a spectacle that left him breathless.

A woman—young, robust, yet gracefully formed—was running ahead
of him, driving before her with an open parasol an animal which he
instantly recognized as one of that simple yet treacherous species most
feared by the sex—known as the “Moo Cow.”

For a moment he was appalled by the spectacle. But it was only for a
moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing
his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around his
head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with unerring
precision, and missed! With the single cry of “Saved!” the fair stranger
sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color came back
to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso from his legs.

“Where am I?” she said faintly.

“In the same place,” he replied, slowly but firmly. “But,” he added, “you
have changed!”

She had, indeed, even to her dress. It was now of a vivid brick red, and
so much longer in the skirt that it seemed to make her taller. Only her
hat remained the same.

“Yes,” she said, in a low, reflective voice and a disregard of her
previous dialect, as she gazed up in his eyes with an eloquent lucidity,
“I have changed, Paul! I feel myself changing at those words you uttered
to Jane. There are moments in a woman’s life that man knows nothing of;
moments bitter and cruel, sweet and merciful, that change her whole being;
moments in which the simple girl becomes a worldly woman; moments in which
the slow procession of her years is never noted—except by another
woman! Moments that change her outlook on the world and her relations to
it—and her husband’s relations! Moments when the maid becomes a
wife, the wife a widow, the widow a re-married woman, by a simple, swift
illumination of the fancy. Moments when, wrought upon by a single word—a
look—an emphasis and rising inflection, all logical sequence is cast
away, processes are lost—inductions lead nowhere. Moments when the
inharmonious becomes harmonious, the indiscreet discreet, the inefficient
efficient, and the inevitable evitable. I mean,” she corrected herself
hurriedly—“You know what I mean! If you have not felt it you have
read it!”

“I have,” he said thoughtfully. “We have both read it in the same novel.
She is a fine writer.”

“Ye-e-s.” She hesitated with that slight resentment of praise of another
woman so delightful in her sex. “But you have forgotten the Moo Cow!” and
she pointed to where the distracted animal was careering across the lawn
towards the garden.

“You are right,” he said, “the incident is not yet closed. Let us pursue
it.”

They both pursued it. Discarding the useless lasso, he had recourse to a
few well-aimed epithets. The infuriated animal swerved and made directly
towards a small fountain in the centre of the garden. In attempting to
clear it, it fell directly into the deep cup-like basin and remained
helplessly fixed, with its fore-legs projecting uneasily beyond the rim.

“Let us leave it there,” she said, “and forget it—and all that has
gone before. Believe me,” she added, with a faint sigh, “it is best. Our
paths diverge from this moment. I go to the summer-house, and you go to
the Hall, where my father is expecting you.” He would have detained her a
moment longer, but she glided away and was gone.

Left to himself again, that slight sense of bewilderment which had clouded
his mind for the last hour began to clear away; his singular encounter
with the girls strangely enough affected him less strongly than his brief
and unsatisfactory interview with his uncle. For, after all, he was his
host, and upon him depended his stay at Hawthorn Hall. The mysterious and
slighting allusions of his cousins to the old man’s eccentricities also
piqued his curiosity. Why had they sneered at his description of the
contents of the package he carried—and what did it really contain?
He did not reflect that it was none of his business,—people in his
situation seldom do,—and he eagerly hurried towards the Hall. But he
found in his preoccupation he had taken the wrong turning in the path, and
that he was now close to the wall which bounded and overlooked the
highway. Here a singular spectacle presented itself. A cyclist covered
with dust was seated in the middle of the road, trying to restore
circulation to his bruised and injured leg by chafing it with his hands,
while beside him lay his damaged bicycle. He had evidently met with an
accident. In an instant Paul had climbed the wall and was at his side.

“Can I offer you any assistance?” he asked eagerly.

“Thanks—no! I’ve come a beastly cropper over something or other on
this road, and I’m only bruised, though the machine has suffered worse,”
replied the stranger, in a fresh, cheery voice. He was a good-looking
fellow of about Paul’s own age, and the young American’s heart went out
towards him.

“How did it happen?” asked Paul.

“That’s what puzzles me,” said the stranger. “I was getting out of the way
of a queer old chap in the road, and I ran over something that seemed only
an old scroll of paper; but the shock was so great that I was thrown, and
I fancy I was for a few moments unconscious. Yet I cannot see any other
obstruction in the road, and there’s only that bit of paper.” He pointed
to the paper,—a half-crushed roll of ordinary foolscap, showing the
mark of the bicycle upon it.

A strange idea came into Paul’s mind. He picked up the paper and examined
it closely. Besides the mark already indicated, it showed two sharp
creases about nine inches long, and another exactly at the point of the
impact of the bicycle. Taking a folded two-foot rule from his pocket, he
carefully measured these parallel creases and made an exhaustive
geometrical calculation with his pencil on the paper. The stranger watched
him with awed and admiring interest. Rising, he again carefully examined
the road, and was finally rewarded by the discovery of a sharp indentation
in the dust, which, on measurement and comparison with the creases in the
paper and the calculations he had just made, proved to be identical.

“There was a solid body in that paper,” said Paul quietly; “a
parallelogram exactly nine inches long and three wide.”

“I say! you’re wonderfully clever, don’t you know,” said the stranger,
with unaffected wonder. “I see it all—a brick.”

Paul smiled gently and shook his head. “That is the hasty inference of an
inexperienced observer. You will observe at the point of impact of your
wheel the parallel crease is CURVED, as from the yielding of the resisting
substances, and not BROKEN, as it would be by the crumbling of a brick.”

“I say, you’re awfully detective, don’t you know! just like that fellow—what’s
his name?” said the stranger admiringly.

The words recalled Paul to himself. Why was he acting like a detective?
and what was he seeking to discover? Nevertheless, he felt impelled to
continue. “And that queer old chap whom you met—why didn’t he help
you?”

“Because I passed him before I ran into the—the parallelogram, and I
suppose he didn’t know what happened behind him?”

“Did he have anything in his hand?”

“Can’t say.”

“And you say you were unconscious afterwards?”

“Yes!”

“Long enough for the culprit to remove the principal evidence of his
crime?”

“Come! I say, really you are—you know you are!”

“Have you any secret enemy?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know Mr. Bunker, the man who owns this vast estate?”

“Not at all. I’m from Upper Tooting.”

“Good afternoon,” said Paul abruptly, and turned away.

It struck him afterwards that his action might have seemed uncivil, and
even inhuman, to the bruised cyclist, who could hardly walk. But it was
getting late, and he was still far from the Hall, which, oddly enough,
seemed to be no longer visible from the road. He wandered on for some
time, half convinced that he had passed the lodge gates, yet hoping to
find some other entrance to the domain. Dusk was falling; the rounded
outlines of the park trees beyond the wall were solid masses of shadow.
The full moon, presently rising, restored them again to symmetry, and at
last he, to his relief, came upon the massive gateway. Two lions ramped in
stone on the side pillars. He thought it strange that he had not noticed
the gateway on his previous entrance, but he remembered that he was fully
preoccupied with the advancing figure of his uncle. In a few minutes the
Hall itself appeared, and here again he was surprised that he had
overlooked before its noble proportions and picturesque outline. Its broad
terraces, dazzlingly white in the moonlight; its long line of mullioned
windows, suffused with a warm red glow from within, made it look like part
of a wintry landscape—and suggested a Christmas card. The venerable
ivy that hid the ravages time had made in its walls looked like black
carving. His heart swelled with strange emotions as he gazed at his
ancestral hall. How many of his blood had lived and died there; how many
had gone forth from that great porch to distant lands! He tried to think
of his father—a little child—peeping between the balustrades
of that terrace. He tried to think of it, and perhaps would have succeeded
had it not occurred to him that it was a known fact that his uncle had
bought the estate and house of an impoverished nobleman only the year
before. Yet—he could not tell why—he seemed to feel higher and
nobler for that trial.

The terrace was deserted, and so quiet that as he ascended to it his
footsteps seemed to echo from the walls. When he reached the portals, the
great oaken door swung noiselessly on its hinges—opened by some
unseen but waiting servitor—and admitted him to a lofty hall, dark
with hangings and family portraits, but warmed by a red carpet the whole
length of its stone floor. For a moment he waited for the servant to show
him to the drawing-room or his uncle’s study. But no one appeared.
Believing this to be a part of the characteristic simplicity of the Quaker
household, he boldly entered the first door, and found himself in a
brilliantly lit and perfectly empty drawing-room. The same experience met
him with the other rooms on that floor—the dining-room displaying an
already set, exquisitely furnished and decorated table, with chairs for
twenty guests! He mechanically ascended the wide oaken staircase that led
to the corridor of bedrooms above a central salon. Here he found only the
same solitude. Bedroom doors yielded to his touch, only to show the same
brilliantly lit vacancy. He presently came upon one room which seemed to
give unmistakable signs of HIS OWN occupancy. Surely there stood his own
dressing-case on the table! and his own evening clothes carefully laid out
on another, as if fresh from a valet’s hands. He stepped hastily into the
corridor—there was no one there; he rang the bell—there was no
response! But he noticed that there was a jug of hot water in his basin,
and he began dressing mechanically.

There was little doubt that he was in a haunted house, but this did not
particularly disturb him. Indeed, he found himself wondering if it could
be logically called a haunted house—unless he himself was haunting
it, for there seemed to be no other there. Perhaps the apparitions would
come later, when he was dressed. Clearly it was not his uncle’s house—and
yet, as he had never been inside his uncle’s house, he reflected that he
ought not to be positive.

He finished dressing and sat down in an armchair with a kind of thoughtful
expectancy. But presently his curiosity became impatient of the silence
and mystery, and he ventured once more to explore the house. Opening his
bedroom door, he found himself again upon the deserted corridor, but this
time he could distinctly hear a buzz of voices from the drawing-room
below. Assured that he was near a solution of the mystery, he rapidly
descended the broad staircase and made his way to the open door of the
drawing-room. But although the sound of voices increased as he advanced,
when he entered the room, to his utter astonishment, it was as empty as
before.

Yet, in spite of his bewilderment and confusion, he was able to follow one
of the voices, which, in its peculiar distinctness and half-perfunctory
tone, he concluded must belong to the host of the invisible assembly.

“Ah,” said the voice, greeting some unseen visitor, “so glad you have
come. Afraid your engagements just now would keep you away.” Then the
voice dropped to a lower and more confidential tone. “You must take down
Lady Dartman, but you will have Miss Morecamp—a clever girl—on
the other side of you. Ah, Sir George! So good of you to come. All well at
the Priory? So glad to hear it.” (Lower and more confidentially.) “You
know Mrs. Monkston. You’ll sit by her. A little cut up by her husband
losing his seat. Try to amuse her.”

Emboldened by desperation, Paul turned in the direction of the voice. “I
am Paul Bunker,” he said hesitatingly. “I’m afraid you’ll think me
intrusive, but I was looking for my uncle, and”—

“Intrusive, my dear boy! The son of my near neighbor in the country
intrusive? Really, now, I like that! Grace!” (the voice turned in another
direction) “here is the American nephew of our neighbor Bunker at
Widdlestone, who thinks he is ‘a stranger.’”

“We all knew of your expected arrival at Widdlestone—it was so good
of you to waive ceremony and join us,” said a well-bred feminine voice,
which Paul at once assumed to belong to the hostess. “But I must find some
one for your dinner partner. Mary” (here her voice was likewise turned
away), “this is Mr. Bunker, the nephew of an old friend and neighbor in
Upshire;” (the voice again turned to him), “you will take Miss Morecamp
in. My dear” (once again averted), “I must find some one else to console
poor dear Lord Billingtree with.” Here the hostess’s voice was drowned by
fresh arrivals.

Bewildered and confused as he was, standing in this empty desert of a
drawing-room, yet encompassed on every side by human voices, so marvelous
was the power of suggestion, he seemed to almost feel the impact of the
invisible crowd. He was trying desperately to realize his situation when a
singularly fascinating voice at his elbow unexpectedly assisted him. It
was evidently his dinner partner.

“I suppose you must be tired after your journey. When did you arrive?”

“Only a few hours ago,” said Paul.

“And I dare say you haven’t slept since you arrived. One doesn’t on the
passage, you know; the twenty hours pass so quickly, and the experience is
so exciting—to US at least. But I suppose as an American you are
used to it.”

Paul gasped. He had passively accepted the bodiless conversation, because
it was at least intelligible! But NOW! Was he going mad?

She evidently noticed his silence. “Never mind,” she continued, “you can
tell me all about it at dinner. Do you know I always think that this sort
of thing—what we’re doing now,—this ridiculous formality of
reception,—which I suppose is after all only a concession to our
English force of habit,—is absurd! We ought to pass, as it were,
directly from our houses to the dinner-table. It saves time.”

“Yes—no—that is—I’m afraid I don’t follow you,”
stammered Paul.

There was a slight pout in her voice as she replied: “No matter now—we
must follow them—for our host is moving off with Lady Billingtree,
and it’s our turn now.”

So great was the illusion that he found himself mechanically offering his
arm as he moved through the empty room towards the door. Then he descended
the staircase without another word, preceded, however, by the sound of his
host’s voice. Following this as a blind man might, he entered the
dining-room, which to his discomfiture was as empty as the salon above.
Still following the host’s voice, he dropped into a chair before the empty
table, wondering what variation of the Barmecide feast was in store for
him. Yet the hum of voices from the vacant chairs around the board so
strongly impressed him that he could almost believe that he was actually
at dinner.

“Are you seated?” asked the charming voice at his side.

“Yes,” a little wonderingly, as his was the only seat visibly occupied.

“I am so glad that this silly ceremony is over. By the way, where are
you?”

Paul would have liked to answer, “Lord only knows!” but he reflected that
it might not sound polite. “Where am I?” he feebly repeated.

“Yes; where are you dining?”

It seemed a cool question under the circumstances, but he answered
promptly,—

“With you.”

“Of course,” said the charming voice; “but where are you eating your
dinner?”

Considering that he was not eating anything, Paul thought this cooler
still. But he answered briefly, “In Upshire.”

“Oh! At your uncle’s?”

“No,” said Paul bluntly; “in the next house.”

“Why, that’s Sir William’s—our host’s—and he and his family
are here in London. You are joking.”

“Listen!” said Paul desperately. Then in a voice unconsciously lowered he
hurriedly told her where he was—how he came there—the empty
house—the viewless company! To his surprise the only response was a
musical little laugh. But the next moment her voice rose higher with an
unmistakable concern in it, apparently addressing their invisible host.

“Oh, Sir William, only think how dreadful. Here’s poor Mr. Bunker, alone
in an empty house, which he has mistaken for his uncle’s—and without
any dinner!”

“Really; dear, dear! How provoking! But how does he happen to be WITH US?
James, how is this?”

“If you please, Sir William,” said a servant’s respectful voice,
“Widdlestone is in the circuit and is switched on with the others. We
heard that a gentleman’s luggage had arrived at Widdlestone, and we
telegraphed for the rooms to be made ready, thinking we’d have her
ladyship’s orders later.”

A single gleam of intelligence flashed upon Paul. His luggage—yes,
had been sent from the station to the wrong house, and he had unwittingly
followed. But these voices! whence did they come? And where was the actual
dinner at which his host was presiding? It clearly was not at this empty
table.

“See that he has everything he wants at once,” said Sir William; “there
must be some one there.” Then his voice turned in the direction of Paul
again, and he said laughingly, “Possess your soul and appetite in patience
for a moment, Mr. Bunker; you will be only a course behind us. But we are
lucky in having your company—even at your own discomfort.”

Still more bewildered, Paul turned to his invisible partner. “May I ask
where YOU are dining?”

“Certainly; at home in Curzon Street,” returned the pretty voice. “It was
raining so, I did not go out.”

“And—Lord Billington?” faltered Paul.

“Oh, he’s in Scotland—at his own place.”

“Then, in fact, nobody is dining here at all,” said Paul desperately.

There was a slight pause, and then the voice responded, with a touch of
startled suggestion in it: “Good heavens, Mr. Bunker! Is it possible you
don’t know we’re dining by telephone?”

“By what?”

“Telephone. Yes. We’re a telephonic dinner-party. We are dining in our own
houses; but, being all friends, we’re switched on to each other, and
converse exactly as we would at table. It saves a great trouble and
expense, for any one of us can give the party, and the poorest can equal
the most extravagant. People who are obliged to diet can partake of their
own slops at home, and yet mingle with the gourmets without awkwardness or
the necessity of apology. We are spared the spectacle, at least, of those
who eat and drink too much. We can switch off a bore at once. We can
retire when we are fatigued, without leaving a blank space before the
others. And all this without saying anything of the higher spiritual and
intellectual effect—freed from material grossness of appetite and
show—which the dinner party thus attains. But you are surely joking!
You, an American, and not know it! Why, it comes from Boston. Haven’t you
read that book, ‘Jumping a Century’? It’s by an American.”

A strange illumination came upon Paul. Where had he heard something like
this before? But at the same moment his thoughts were diverted by the
material entrance of a footman, bearing a silver salver with his dinner.
It was part of his singular experience that the visible entrance of this
real, commonplace mortal—the only one he had seen—in the midst
of this voiceless solitude was distinctly unreal, and had all the effect
of an apparition. He distrusted it and the dishes before him. But his
lively partner’s voice was now addressing an unseen occupant of the next
chair. Had she got tired of his ignorance, or was it feminine tact to
enable him to eat something? He accepted the latter hypothesis, and tried
to eat. But he felt himself following the fascinating voice in all the
charm of its youthful and spiritual inflections. Taking advantage of its
momentary silence, he said gently,—

“I confess my ignorance, and am willing to admit all you claim for this
wonderful invention. But do you think it compensates for the loss of the
individual person? Take my own case—if you will not think me
personal. I have never had the pleasure of seeing you; do you believe that
I am content with only that suggestion of your personality which the
satisfaction of hearing your voice affords me?”

There was a pause, and then a very mischievous ring in the voice that
replied: “It certainly is a personal question, and it is another blessing
of this invention that you’ll never know whether I am blushing or not; but
I forgive you, for I never before spoke to any one I had never seen—and
I suppose it’s confusion. But do you really think you would know me—the
REAL one—any better? It is the real person who thinks and speaks,
not the outward semblance that we see, which very often unfairly either
attracts or repels us? We can always SHOW ourselves at our best, but we
must, at last, reveal our true colors through our thoughts and speech.
Isn’t it better to begin with the real thing first?”

“I hope, at least, to have the privilege of judging by myself,” said Paul
gallantly. “You will not be so cruel as not to let me see you elsewhere,
otherwise I shall feel as if I were in some dream, and will certainly be
opposed to your preference for realities.”

“I am not certain if the dream would not be more interesting to you,” said
the voice laughingly. “But I think your hostess is already saying
‘good-by.’ You know everybody goes at once at this kind of party; the
ladies don’t retire first, and the gentlemen join them afterwards. In
another moment we’ll ALL be switched off; but Sir William wants me to tell
you that his coachman will drive you to your uncle’s, unless you prefer to
try and make yourself comfortable for the night here. Good-by!”

The voices around him seemed to grow fainter, and then utterly cease. The
lights suddenly leaped up, went out, and left him in complete darkness. He
attempted to rise, but in doing so overset the dishes before him, which
slid to the floor. A cold air seemed to blow across his feet. The
“good-by” was still ringing in his ears as he straightened himself to find
he was in his railway carriage, whose door had just been opened for a
young lady who was entering the compartment from a wayside station.
“Good-by,” she repeated to the friend who was seeing her off. The Writer
of Stories hurriedly straightened himself, gathered up the magazines and
papers that had fallen from his lap, and glanced at the station walls. The
old illustrations glanced back at him! He looked at his watch; he had been
asleep just ten minutes!

BOHEMIAN DAYS IN SAN FRANCISCO

It is but just to the respectable memory of San Francisco that in these
vagrant recollections I should deprecate at once any suggestion that the
levity of my title described its dominant tone at any period of my early
experiences. On the contrary, it was a singular fact that while the rest
of California was swayed by an easy, careless unconventionalism, or swept
over by waves of emotion and sentiment, San Francisco preserved an
intensely material and practical attitude, and even a certain austere
morality. I do not, of course, allude to the brief days of ‘49, when it
was a straggling beach of huts and stranded hulks, but to the earlier
stages of its development into the metropolis of California. Its first
tottering steps in that direction were marked by a distinct gravity and
decorum. Even during the period when the revolver settled small private
difficulties, and Vigilance Committees adjudicated larger public ones, an
unmistakable seriousness and respectability was the ruling sign of its
governing class. It was not improbable that under the reign of the
Committee the lawless and vicious class were more appalled by the moral
spectacle of several thousand black-coated, serious-minded business men in
embattled procession than by mere force of arms, and one “suspect”—a
prize-fighter—is known to have committed suicide in his cell after
confrontation with his grave and passionless shopkeeping judges. Even that
peculiar quality of Californian humor which was apt to mitigate the
extravagances of the revolver and the uncertainties of poker had no place
in the decorous and responsible utterance of San Francisco. The press was
sober, materialistic, practical—when it was not severely admonitory
of existing evil; the few smaller papers that indulged in levity were
considered libelous and improper. Fancy was displaced by heavy articles on
the revenues of the State and inducements to the investment of capital.
Local news was under an implied censorship which suppressed anything that
might tend to discourage timid or cautious capital. Episodes of romantic
lawlessness or pathetic incidents of mining life were carefully edited—with
the comment that these things belonged to the past, and that life and
property were now “as safe in San Francisco as in New York or London.”

Wonder-loving visitors in quest of scenes characteristic of the
civilization were coldly snubbed with this assurance. Fires, floods, and
even seismic convulsions were subjected to a like grimly materialistic
optimism. I have a vivid recollection of a ponderous editorial on one of
the severer earthquakes, in which it was asserted that only the
UNEXPECTEDNESS of the onset prevented San Francisco from meeting it in a
way that would be deterrent of all future attacks. The unconsciousness of
the humor was only equaled by the gravity with which it was received by
the whole business community. Strangely enough, this grave materialism
flourished side by side with—and was even sustained by—a
narrow religious strictness more characteristic of the Pilgrim Fathers of
a past century than the Western pioneers of the present. San Francisco was
early a city of churches and church organizations to which the leading men
and merchants belonged. The lax Sundays of the dying Spanish race seemed
only to provoke a revival of the rigors of the Puritan Sabbath. With the
Spaniard and his Sunday afternoon bullfight scarcely an hour distant, the
San Francisco pulpit thundered against Sunday picnics. One of the popular
preachers, declaiming upon the practice of Sunday dinner-giving, averred
that when he saw a guest in his best Sunday clothes standing shamelessly
upon the doorstep of his host, he felt like seizing him by the shoulder
and dragging him from that threshold of perdition.

Against the actual heathen the feeling was even stronger, and reached its
climax one Sunday when a Chinaman was stoned to death by a crowd of
children returning from Sunday-school. I am offering these examples with
no ethical purpose, but merely to indicate a singular contradictory
condition which I do not think writers of early Californian history have
fairly recorded. It is not my province to suggest any theory for these
appalling exceptions to the usual good-humored lawlessness and
extravagance of the rest of the State. They may have been essential
agencies to the growth and evolution of the city. They were undoubtedly
sincere. The impressions I propose to give of certain scenes and incidents
of my early experience must, therefore, be taken as purely personal and
Bohemian, and their selection as equally individual and vagrant. I am
writing of what interested me at the time, though not perhaps of what was
more generally characteristic of San Francisco.

I had been there a week—an idle week, spent in listless outlook for
employment; a full week in my eager absorption of the strange life around
me and a photographic sensitiveness to certain scenes and incidents of
those days, which start out of my memory to-day as freshly as the day they
impressed me.

One of these recollections is of “steamer night,” as it was called,—the
night of “steamer day,”—preceding the departure of the mail
steamship with the mails for “home.” Indeed, at that time San Francisco
may be said to have lived from steamer day to steamer day; bills were made
due on that day, interest computed to that period, and accounts settled.
The next day was the turning of a new leaf: another essay to fortune,
another inspiration of energy. So recognized was the fact that even
ordinary changes of condition, social and domestic, were put aside until
AFTER steamer day. “I’ll see what I can do after next steamer day” was the
common cautious or hopeful formula. It was the “Saturday night” of many a
wage-earner—and to him a night of festivity. The thoroughfares were
animated and crowded; the saloons and theatres full. I can recall myself
at such times wandering along the City Front, as the business part of San
Francisco was then known. Here the lights were burning all night, the
first streaks of dawn finding the merchants still at their counting-house
desks. I remember the dim lines of warehouses lining the insecure wharves
of rotten piles, half filled in—that had ceased to be wharves, but
had not yet become streets,—their treacherous yawning depths, with
the uncertain gleam of tarlike mud below, at times still vocal with the
lap and gurgle of the tide. I remember the weird stories of disappearing
men found afterward imbedded in the ooze in which they had fallen and
gasped their life away. I remember the two or three ships, still left
standing where they were beached a year or two before, built in between
warehouses, their bows projecting into the roadway. There was the dignity
of the sea and its boundless freedom in their beautiful curves, which the
abutting houses could not destroy, and even something of the sea’s
loneliness in the far-spaced ports and cabin windows lit up by the lamps
of the prosaic landsmen who plied their trades behind them. One of these
ships, transformed into a hotel, retained its name, the Niantic, and part
of its characteristic interior unchanged. I remember these ships’ old
tenants—the rats—who had increased and multiplied to such an
extent that at night they fearlessly crossed the wayfarer’s path at every
turn, and even invaded the gilded saloons of Montgomery Street. In the
Niantic their pit-a-pat was met on every staircase, and it was said that
sometimes in an excess of sociability they accompanied the traveler to his
room. In the early “cloth-and-papered” houses—so called because the
ceilings were not plastered, but simply covered by stretched and
whitewashed cloth—their scamperings were plainly indicated in zigzag
movements of the sagging cloth, or they became actually visible by finally
dropping through the holes they had worn in it! I remember the house whose
foundations were made of boxes of plug tobacco—part of a jettisoned
cargo—used instead of more expensive lumber; and the adjacent
warehouse where the trunks of the early and forgotten “forty-niners” were
stored, and—never claimed by their dead or missing owners—were
finally sold at auction. I remember the strong breath of the sea over all,
and the constant onset of the trade winds which helped to disinfect the
deposit of dirt and grime, decay and wreckage, which were stirred up in
the later evolutions of the city.

Or I recall, with the same sense of youthful satisfaction and unabated
wonder, my wanderings through the Spanish Quarter, where three centuries
of quaint customs, speech, and dress were still preserved; where the
proverbs of Sancho Panza were still spoken in the language of Cervantes,
and the high-flown illusions of the La Manchian knight still a part of the
Spanish Californian hidalgo’s dream. I recall the more modern “Greaser,”
or Mexican—his index finger steeped in cigarette stains; his velvet
jacket and his crimson sash; the many-flounced skirt and lace manta of his
women, and their caressing intonations—the one musical utterance of
the whole hard-voiced city. I suppose I had a boy’s digestion and
bluntness of taste in those days, for the combined odor of tobacco, burned
paper, and garlic, which marked that melodious breath, did not affect me.

Perhaps from my Puritan training I experienced a more fearful joy in the
gambling saloons. They were the largest and most comfortable, even as they
were the most expensively decorated rooms in San Francisco. Here again the
gravity and decorum which I have already alluded to were present at that
earlier period—though perhaps from concentration of another kind.
People staked and lost their last dollar with a calm solemnity and a
resignation that was almost Christian. The oaths, exclamations, and
feverish interruptions which often characterized more dignified assemblies
were absent here. There was no room for the lesser vices; there was little
or no drunkenness; the gaudily dressed and painted women who presided over
the wheels of fortune or performed on the harp and piano attracted no
attention from those ascetic players. The man who had won ten thousand
dollars and the man who had lost everything rose from the table with equal
silence and imperturbability. I never witnessed any tragic sequel to those
losses; I never heard of any suicide on account of them. Neither can I
recall any quarrel or murder directly attributable to this kind of
gambling. It must be remembered that these public games were chiefly rouge
et noir, monte, faro, or roulette, in which the antagonist was Fate,
Chance, Method, or the impersonal “bank,” which was supposed to represent
them all; there was no individual opposition or rivalry; nobody challenged
the decision of the “croupier,” or dealer.

I remember a conversation at the door of one saloon which was as
characteristic for its brevity as it was a type of the prevailing
stoicism. “Hello!” said a departing miner, as he recognized a brother
miner coming in, “when did you come down?” “This morning,” was the reply.
“Made a strike on the bar?” suggested the first speaker. “You bet!” said
the other, and passed in. I chanced an hour later to be at the same place
as they met again—their relative positions changed. “Hello! Whar
now?” said the incomer. “Back to the bar.” “Cleaned out?” “You bet!” Not a
word more explained a common situation.

My first youthful experience at those tables was an accidental one. I was
watching roulette one evening, intensely absorbed in the mere movement of
the players. Either they were so preoccupied with the game, or I was
really older looking than my actual years, but a bystander laid his hand
familiarly on my shoulder, and said, as to an ordinary habitue, “Ef you’re
not chippin’ in yourself, pardner, s’pose you give ME a show.” Now I
honestly believe that up to that moment I had no intention, nor even a
desire, to try my own fortune. But in the embarrassment of the sudden
address I put my hand in my pocket, drew out a coin, and laid it, with an
attempt at carelessness, but a vivid consciousness that I was blushing,
upon a vacant number. To my horror I saw that I had put down a large coin—the
bulk of my possessions! I did not flinch, however; I think any boy who
reads this will understand my feeling; it was not only my coin but my
manhood at stake. I gazed with a miserable show of indifference at the
players, at the chandelier—anywhere but at the dreadful ball
spinning round the wheel. There was a pause; the game was declared, the
rake rattled up and down, but still I did not look at the table. Indeed,
in my inexperience of the game and my embarrassment, I doubt if I should
have known if I had won or not. I had made up my mind that I should lose,
but I must do so like a man, and, above all, without giving the least
suspicion that I was a greenhorn. I even affected to be listening to the
music. The wheel spun again; the game was declared, the rake was busy, but
I did not move. At last the man I had displaced touched me on the arm and
whispered, “Better make a straddle and divide your stake this time.” I did
not understand him, but as I saw he was looking at the board, I was
obliged to look, too. I drew back dazed and bewildered! Where my coin had
lain a moment before was a glittering heap of gold.

My stake had doubled, quadrupled, and doubled again. I did not know how
much then—-I do not know now—it may have been not more than
three or four hundred dollars—but it dazzled and frightened me.
“Make your game, gentlemen,” said the croupier monotonously. I thought he
looked at me—indeed, everybody seemed to be looking at me—and
my companion repeated his warning. But here I must again appeal to the
boyish reader in defense of my idiotic obstinacy. To have taken advice
would have shown my youth. I shook my head—I could not trust my
voice. I smiled, but with a sinking heart, and let my stake remain. The
ball again sped round the wheel, and stopped. There was a pause. The
croupier indolently advanced his rake and swept my whole pile with others
into the bank! I had lost it all. Perhaps it may be difficult for me to
explain why I actually felt relieved, and even to some extent triumphant,
but I seemed to have asserted my grown-up independence—possibly at
the cost of reducing the number of my meals for days; but what of that! I
was a man! I wish I could say that it was a lesson to me. I am afraid it
was not. It was true that I did not gamble again, but then I had no
especial desire to—and there was no temptation. I am afraid it was
an incident without a moral. Yet it had one touch characteristic of the
period which I like to remember. The man who had spoken to me, I think,
suddenly realized, at the moment of my disastrous coup, the fact of my
extreme youth. He moved toward the banker, and leaning over him whispered
a few words. The banker looked up, half impatiently, half kindly—his
hand straying tentatively toward the pile of coin. I instinctively knew
what he meant, and, summoning my determination, met his eyes with all the
indifference I could assume, and walked away.

I had at that period a small room at the top of a house owned by a distant
relation—a second or third cousin, I think. He was a man of
independent and original character, had a Ulyssean experience of men and
cities, and an old English name of which he was proud. While in London he
had procured from the Heralds’ College his family arms, whose crest was
stamped upon a quantity of plate he had brought with him to California.
The plate, together with an exceptionally good cook, which he had also
brought, and his own epicurean tastes, he utilized in the usual practical
Californian fashion by starting a rather expensive half-club,
half-restaurant in the lower part of the building—which he ruled
somewhat autocratically, as became his crest. The restaurant was too
expensive for me to patronize, but I saw many of its frequenters as well
as those who had rooms at the club. They were men of very distinct
personality; a few celebrated, and nearly all notorious. They represented
a Bohemianism—if such it could be called—less innocent than my
later experiences. I remember, however, one handsome young fellow whom I
used to meet occasionally on the staircase, who captured my youthful
fancy. I met him only at midday, as he did not rise till late, and this
fact, with a certain scrupulous elegance and neatness in his dress, ought
to have made me suspect that he was a gambler. In my inexperience it only
invested him with a certain romantic mystery.

One morning as I was going out to my very early breakfast at a cheap
Italian cafe on Long Wharf, I was surprised to find him also descending
the staircase. He was scrupulously dressed even at that early hour, but I
was struck by the fact that he was all in black, and his slight figure,
buttoned to the throat in a tightly fitting frock coat, gave, I fancied, a
singular melancholy to his pale Southern face. Nevertheless, he greeted me
with more than his usual serene cordiality, and I remembered that he
looked up with a half-puzzled, half-amused expression at the rosy morning
sky as he walked a few steps with me down the deserted street. I could not
help saying that I was astonished to see him up so early, and he admitted
that it was a break in his usual habits, but added with a smiling
significance I afterwards remembered that it was “an even chance if he did
it again.” As we neared the street corner a man in a buggy drove up
impatiently. In spite of the driver’s evident haste, my handsome
acquaintance got in leisurely, and, lifting his glossy hat to me with a
pleasant smile, was driven away. I have a very lasting recollection of his
face and figure as the buggy disappeared down the empty street. I never
saw him again. It was not until a week later that I knew that an hour
after he left me that morning he was lying dead in a little hollow behind
the Mission Dolores—shot through the heart in a duel for which he
had risen so early.

I recall another incident of that period, equally characteristic, but
happily less tragic in sequel. I was in the restaurant one morning talking
to my cousin when a man entered hastily and said something to him in a
hurried whisper. My cousin contracted his eyebrows and uttered a
suppressed oath. Then with a gesture of warning to the man he crossed the
room quietly to a table where a regular habitue of the restaurant was
lazily finishing his breakfast. A large silver coffee-pot with a stiff
wooden handle stood on the table before him. My cousin leaned over the
guest familiarly and apparently made some hospitable inquiry as to his
wants, with his hand resting lightly on the coffee-pot handle. Then—possibly
because, my curiosity having been excited, I was watching him more
intently than the others—I saw what probably no one else saw—that
he deliberately upset the coffee-pot and its contents over the guest’s
shirt and waistcoat. As the victim sprang up with an exclamation, my
cousin overwhelmed him with apologies for his carelessness, and, with
protestations of sorrow for the accident, actually insisted upon dragging
the man upstairs into his own private room, where he furnished him with a
shirt and waistcoat of his own. The side door had scarcely closed upon
them, and I was still lost in wonder at what I had seen, when a man
entered from the street. He was one of the desperate set I have already
spoken of, and thoroughly well known to those present. He cast a glance
around the room, nodded to one or two of the guests, and then walked to a
side table and took up a newspaper. I was conscious at once that a
singular constraint had come over the other guests—a nervous
awkwardness that at last seemed to make itself known to the man himself,
who, after an affected yawn or two, laid down the paper and walked out.

“That was a mighty close call,” said one of the guests with a sigh of
relief.

“You bet! And that coffee-pot spill was the luckiest kind of accident for
Peters,” returned another.

“For both,” added the first speaker, “for Peters was armed too, and would
have seen him come in!”

A word or two explained all. Peters and the last comer had quarreled a day
or two before, and had separated with the intention to “shoot on sight,”
that is, wherever they met,—a form of duel common to those days. The
accidental meeting in the restaurant would have been the occasion, with
the usual sanguinary consequence, but for the word of warning given to my
cousin by a passer-by who knew that Peters’ antagonist was coming to the
restaurant to look at the papers. Had my cousin repeated the warning to
Peters himself he would only have prepared him for the conflict—which
he would not have shirked—and so precipitated the affray.

The ruse of upsetting the coffee-pot, which everybody but myself thought
an accident, was to get him out of the room before the other entered. I
was too young then to venture to intrude upon my cousin’s secrets, but two
or three years afterwards I taxed him with the trick and he admitted it
regretfully. I believe that a strict interpretation of the “code” would
have condemned his act as unsportsmanlike, if not UNFAIR!

I recall another incident connected with the building equally
characteristic of the period. The United States Branch Mint stood very
near it, and its tall, factory-like chimneys overshadowed my cousin’s
roof. Some scandal had arisen from an alleged leakage of gold in the
manipulation of that metal during the various processes of smelting and
refining. One of the excuses offered was the volatilization of the
precious metal and its escape through the draft of the tall chimneys. All
San Francisco laughed at this explanation until it learned that a
corroboration of the theory had been established by an assay of the dust
and grime of the roofs in the vicinity of the Mint. These had yielded
distinct traces of gold. San Francisco stopped laughing, and that portion
of it which had roofs in the neighborhood at once began prospecting.
Claims were staked out on these airy placers, and my cousin’s roof, being
the very next one to the chimney, and presumably “in the lead,” was
disposed of to a speculative company for a considerable sum. I remember my
cousin telling me the story—for the occurrence was quite recent—and
taking me with him to the roof to explain it, but I am afraid I was more
attracted by the mystery of the closely guarded building, and the
strangely tinted smoke which arose from this temple where money was
actually being “made,” than by anything else. Nor did I dream as I stood
there—a very lanky, open-mouthed youth—that only three or four
years later I should be the secretary of its superintendent. In my more
adventurous ambition I am afraid I would have accepted the suggestion
half-heartedly. Merely to have helped to stamp the gold which other people
had adventurously found was by no means a part of my youthful dreams.

At the time of these earlier impressions the Chinese had not yet become
the recognized factors in the domestic and business economy of the city
which they had come to be when I returned from the mines three years
later. Yet they were even then a more remarkable and picturesque contrast
to the bustling, breathless, and brand-new life of San Francisco than the
Spaniard. The latter seldom flaunted his faded dignity in the principal
thoroughfares. “John” was to be met everywhere. It was a common thing to
see a long file of sampan coolies carrying their baskets slung between
them, on poles, jostling a modern, well-dressed crowd in Montgomery
Street, or to get a whiff of their burned punk in the side streets; while
the road leading to their temporary burial-ground at Lone Mountain was
littered with slips of colored paper scattered from their funerals. They
brought an atmosphere of the Arabian Nights into the hard, modern
civilization; their shops—not always confined at that time to a
Chinese quarter—were replicas of the bazaars of Canton and Peking,
with their quaint display of little dishes on which tidbits of food
delicacies were exposed for sale, all of the dimensions and unreality of a
doll’s kitchen or a child’s housekeeping.

They were a revelation to the Eastern immigrant, whose preconceived ideas
of them were borrowed from the ballet or pantomime; they did not wear
scalloped drawers and hats with jingling bells on their points, nor did I
ever see them dance with their forefingers vertically extended. They were
always neatly dressed, even the commonest of coolies, and their festive
dresses were marvels. As traders they were grave and patient; as servants
they were sad and civil, and all were singularly infantine in their
natural simplicity. The living representatives of the oldest civilization
in the world, they seemed like children. Yet they kept their beliefs and
sympathies to themselves, never fraternizing with the fanqui, or foreign
devil, or losing their singular racial qualities. They indulged in their
own peculiar habits; of their social and inner life, San Francisco knew
but little and cared less. Even at this early period, and before I came to
know them more intimately, I remember an incident of their daring fidelity
to their own customs that was accidentally revealed to me. I had become
acquainted with a Chinese youth of about my own age, as I imagined,—although
from mere outward appearance it was generally impossible to judge of a
Chinaman’s age between the limits of seventeen and forty years,—and
he had, in a burst of confidence, taken me to see some characteristic
sights in a Chinese warehouse within a stone’s throw of the Plaza. I was
struck by the singular circumstance that while the warehouse was an
erection of wood in the ordinary hasty Californian style, there were
certain brick and stone divisions in its interior, like small rooms or
closets, evidently added by the Chinamen tenants. My companion stopped
before a long, very narrow entrance, a mere longitudinal slit in the brick
wall, and with a wink of infantine deviltry motioned me to look inside. I
did so, and saw a room, really a cell, of fair height but scarcely six
feet square, and barely able to contain a rude, slanting couch of stone
covered with matting, on which lay, at a painful angle, a richly dressed
Chinaman. A single glance at his dull, staring, abstracted eyes and
half-opened mouth showed me he was in an opium trance. This was not in
itself a novel sight, and I was moving away when I was suddenly startled
by the appearance of his hands, which were stretched helplessly before him
on his body, and at first sight seemed to be in a kind of wicker cage.

I then saw that his finger-nails were seven or eight inches long, and were
supported by bamboo splints. Indeed, they were no longer human nails, but
twisted and distorted quills, giving him the appearance of having gigantic
claws. “Velly big Chinaman,” whispered my cheerful friend; “first-chop man—high
classee—no can washee—no can eat—no dlinke, no catchee
him own glub allee same nothee man—China boy must catchee glub for
him, allee time! Oh, him first-chop man—you bettee!”

I had heard of this singular custom of indicating caste before, and was
amazed and disgusted, but I was not prepared for what followed. My
companion, evidently thinking he had impressed me, grew more reckless as
showman, and saying to me, “Now me showee you one funny thing—heap
makee you laugh,” led me hurriedly across a little courtyard swarming with
chickens and rabbits, when he stopped before another inclosure. Suddenly
brushing past an astonished Chinaman who seemed to be standing guard, he
thrust me into the inclosure in front of a most extraordinary object. It
was a Chinaman, wearing a huge, square, wooden frame fastened around his
neck like a collar, and fitting so tightly and rigidly that the flesh rose
in puffy weals around his cheeks. He was chained to a post, although it
was as impossible for him to have escaped with his wooden cage through the
narrow doorway as it was for him to lie down and rest in it. Yet I am
bound to say that his eyes and face expressed nothing but apathy, and
there was no appeal to the sympathy of the stranger. My companion said
hurriedly,—

“Velly bad man; stealee heap from Chinamen,” and then, apparently alarmed
at his own indiscreet intrusion, hustled me away as quickly as possible
amid a shrill cackling of protestation from a few of his own countrymen
who had joined the one who was keeping guard. In another moment we were in
the street again—scarce a step from the Plaza, in the full light of
Western civilization—not a stone’s throw from the courts of justice.

My companion took to his heels and left me standing there bewildered and
indignant. I could not rest until I had told my story, but without
betraying my companion, to an elder acquaintance, who laid the facts
before the police authorities. I had expected to be closely cross-examined—to
be doubted—to be disbelieved. To my surprise, I was told that the
police had already cognizance of similar cases of illegal and barbarous
punishments, but that the victims themselves refused to testify against
their countrymen—and it was impossible to convict or even to
identify them. “A white man can’t tell one Chinese from another, and there
are always a dozen of ‘em ready to swear that the man you’ve got isn’t the
one.” I was startled to reflect that I, too, could not have
conscientiously sworn to either jailor or the tortured prisoner—or
perhaps even to my cheerful companion. The police, on some pretext, made a
raid upon the premises a day or two afterwards, but without result. I
wondered if they had caught sight of the high-class, first-chop
individual, with the helplessly outstretched fingers, as that story I had
kept to myself.

But these barbaric vestiges in John Chinaman’s habits did not affect his
relations with the San Franciscans. He was singularly peaceful, docile,
and harmless as a servant, and, with rare exceptions, honest and
temperate. If he sometimes matched cunning with cunning, it was the
flattery of imitation. He did most of the menial work of San Francisco,
and did it cleanly. Except that he exhaled a peculiar druglike odor, he
was not personally offensive in domestic contact, and by virtue of being
the recognized laundryman of the whole community his own blouses were
always freshly washed and ironed. His conversational reserve arose, not
from his having to deal with an unfamiliar language,—for he had
picked up a picturesque and varied vocabulary with ease,—but from
his natural temperament. He was devoid of curiosity, and utterly
unimpressed by anything but the purely business concerns of those he
served. Domestic secrets were safe with him; his indifference to your
thoughts, actions, and feelings had all the contempt which his three
thousand years of history and his innate belief in your inferiority seemed
to justify. He was blind and deaf in your household because you didn’t
interest him in the least. It was said that a gentleman, who wished to
test his impassiveness, arranged with his wife to come home one day and,
in the hearing of his Chinese waiter who was more than usually intelligent—to
disclose with well-simulated emotion the details of a murder he had just
committed. He did so. The Chinaman heard it without a sign of horror or
attention even to the lifting of an eyelid, but continued his duties
unconcerned. Unfortunately, the gentleman, in order to increase the horror
of the situation, added that now there was nothing left for him but to cut
his throat. At this John quietly left the room. The gentleman was
delighted at the success of his ruse until the door reopened and John
reappeared with his master’s razor, which he quietly slipped—as if
it had been a forgotten fork—beside his master’s plate, and calmly
resumed his serving. I have always considered this story to be quite as
improbable as it was inartistic, from its tacit admission of a certain
interest on the part of the Chinaman. I never knew one who would have been
sufficiently concerned to go for the razor.

His taciturnity and reticence may have been confounded with rudeness of
address, although he was always civil enough. “I see you have listened to
me and done exactly what I told you,” said a lady, commending some
performance of her servant after a previous lengthy lecture; “that’s very
nice.” “Yes,” said John calmly, “you talkee allee time; talkee allee too
much.” “I always find Ling very polite,” said another lady, speaking of
her cook, “but I wish he did not always say to me, ‘Goodnight, John,’ in a
high falsetto voice.” She had not recognized the fact that he was simply
repeating her own salutation with his marvelous instinct of relentless
imitation, even as to voice. I hesitate to record the endless stories of
his misapplication of that faculty which were then current, from the one
of the laundryman who removed the buttons from the shirts that were sent
to him to wash that they might agree with the condition of the one offered
him as a pattern for “doing up,” to that of the unfortunate employer who,
while showing John how to handle valuable china carefully, had the
misfortune to drop a plate himself—an accident which was followed by
the prompt breaking of another by the neophyte, with the addition of “Oh,
hellee!” in humble imitation of his master.

I have spoken of his general cleanliness; I am reminded of one or two
exceptions, which I think, however, were errors of zeal. His manner of
sprinkling clothes in preparing them for ironing was peculiar. He would
fill his mouth with perfectly pure water from a glass beside him, and
then, by one dexterous movement of his lips in a prolonged expiration,
squirt the water in an almost invisible misty shower on the article before
him. Shocking as this was at first to the sensibilities of many American
employers, it was finally accepted, and even commended. It was some time
after this that the mistress of a household, admiring the deft way in
which her cook had spread a white sauce on certain dishes, was cheerfully
informed that the method was “allee same.”

His recreations at that time were chiefly gambling, for the Chinese
theatre wherein the latter produced his plays (which lasted for several
months and comprised the events of a whole dynasty) was not yet built. But
he had one or two companies of jugglers who occasionally performed also at
American theatres. I remember a singular incident which attended the debut
of a newly arrived company. It seemed that the company had been taken on
their Chinese reputation solely, and there had been no previous rehearsal
before the American stage manager. The theatre was filled with an audience
of decorous and respectable San Franciscans of both sexes. It was suddenly
emptied in the middle of the performance; the curtain came down with an
alarmed and blushing manager apologizing to deserted benches, and the show
abruptly terminated. Exactly WHAT had happened never appeared in the
public papers, nor in the published apology of the manager. It afforded a
few days’ mirth for wicked San Francisco, and it was epigrammatically
summed up in the remark that “no woman could be found in San Francisco who
was at that performance, and no man who was not.” Yet it was alleged even
by John’s worst detractors that he was innocent of any intended offense.
Equally innocent, but perhaps more morally instructive, was an incident
that brought his career as a singularly successful physician to a
disastrous close. An ordinary native Chinese doctor, practicing entirely
among his own countrymen, was reputed to have made extraordinary cures
with two or three American patients. With no other advertising than this,
and apparently no other inducement offered to the public than what their
curiosity suggested, he was presently besieged by hopeful and eager
sufferers. Hundreds of patients were turned away from his crowded doors.
Two interpreters sat, day and night, translating the ills of ailing San
Francisco to this medical oracle, and dispensing his prescriptions—usually
small powders—in exchange for current coin. In vain the regular
practitioners pointed out that the Chinese possessed no superior medical
knowledge, and that their religion, which proscribed dissection and
autopsies, naturally limited their understanding of the body into which
they put their drugs. Finally they prevailed upon an eminent Chinese
authority to give them a list of the remedies generally used in the
Chinese pharmacopoeia, and this was privately circulated. For obvious
reasons I may not repeat it here. But it was summed up—again after
the usual Californian epigrammatic style—by the remark that
“whatever were the comparative merits of Chinese and American practice, a
simple perusal of the list would prove that the Chinese were capable of
producing the most powerful emetic known.” The craze subsided in a single
day; the interpreters and their oracle vanished; the Chinese doctors’
signs, which had multiplied, disappeared, and San Francisco awoke cured of
its madness, at the cost of some thousand dollars.

My Bohemian wanderings were confined to the limits of the city, for the
very good reason that there was little elsewhere to go. San Francisco was
then bounded on one side by the monotonously restless waters of the bay,
and on the other by a stretch of equally restless and monotonously
shifting sand dunes as far as the Pacific shore. Two roads penetrated this
waste: one to Lone Mountain—the cemetery; the other to the Cliff
House—happily described as “an eight-mile drive with a cocktail at
the end of it.” Nor was the humor entirely confined to this felicitous
description. The Cliff House itself, half restaurant, half drinking
saloon, fronting the ocean and the Seal Rock, where disporting seals were
the chief object of interest, had its own peculiar symbol. The decanters,
wine-glasses, and tumblers at the bar were all engraved in old English
script with the legal initials “L. S.” (Locus Sigilli),—“the place
of the seal.”

On the other hand, Lone Mountain, a dreary promontory giving upon the
Golden Gate and its striking sunsets, had little to soften its weird
suggestiveness. As the common goal of the successful and unsuccessful, the
carved and lettered shaft of the man who had made a name, and the staring
blank headboard of the man who had none, climbed the sandy slopes
together. I have seen the funerals of the respectable citizen who had died
peacefully in his bed, and the notorious desperado who had died “with his
boots on,” followed by an equally impressive cortege of sorrowing friends,
and often the self-same priest. But more awful than its barren loneliness
was the utter absence of peacefulness and rest in this dismal promontory.
By some wicked irony of its situation and climate it was the
personification of unrest and change. The incessant trade winds carried
its loose sands hither and thither, uncovering the decaying coffins of
early pioneers, to bury the wreaths and flowers, laid on a grave of
to-day, under their obliterating waves. No tree to shade them from the
glaring sky above could live in those winds, no turf would lie there to
resist the encroaching sand below. The dead were harried and hustled even
in their graves by the persistent sun, the unremitting wind, and the
unceasing sea. The departing mourner saw the contour of the very mountain
itself change with the shifting dunes as he passed, and his last look
beyond rested on the hurrying, eager waves forever hastening to the Golden
Gate.

If I were asked to say what one thing impressed me as the dominant and
characteristic note of San Francisco, I should say it was this untiring
presence of sun and wind and sea. They typified, even if they were not, as
I sometimes fancied, the actual incentive to the fierce, restless life of
the city. I could not think of San Francisco without the trade winds; I
could not imagine its strange, incongruous, multigenerous procession
marching to any other music. They were always there in my youthful
recollections; they were there in my more youthful dreams of the past as
the mysterious vientes generales that blew the Philippine galleons home.

For six months they blew from the northwest, for six months from the
southwest, with unvarying persistency. They were there every morning,
glittering in the equally persistent sunlight, to chase the San Franciscan
from his slumber; they were there at midday, to stir his pulses with their
beat; they were there again at night, to hurry him through the bleak and
flaring gas-lit streets to bed. They left their mark on every windward
street or fence or gable, on the outlying sand dunes; they lashed the slow
coasters home, and hurried them to sea again; they whipped the bay into
turbulence on their way to Contra Costa, whose level shoreland oaks they
had trimmed to windward as cleanly and sharply as with a pruning-shears.
Untiring themselves, they allowed no laggards; they drove the San
Franciscan from the wall against which he would have leaned, from the
scant shade in which at noontide he might have rested. They turned his
smallest fires into conflagrations, and kept him ever alert, watchful, and
eager. In return, they scavenged his city and held it clean and wholesome;
in summer they brought him the soft sea-fog for a few hours to soothe his
abraded surfaces; in winter they brought the rains and dashed the whole
coast-line with flowers, and the staring sky above it with soft, unwonted
clouds. They were always there—strong, vigilant, relentless,
material, unyielding, triumphant.

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